One of the country’s most important foreign policymakers wants to quit: Im star SPD man Michael Roth announces his retirement from politics, talks about the brutality of the company, his tough childhood – and a life in freedom.
Friday afternoon, Michael Roth welcomes people at his home in Bad Hersfeld. He got cake. The Social Democrat will talk for three hours about what led him to make perhaps the most difficult decision of his career: the 53-year-old will leave politics. Roth is one of the country’s most renowned foreign policy experts. He has been a member of the Bundestag since 1998 and was Minister of State in the Foreign Office and coordinator of German-French relations. He has headed the Foreign Affairs Committee since 2021 and is one of the most important voices in the debate about the Ukraine war. He wants to continue until the federal election. And then? “I have no idea,” he says.