Olaf Scholz

Olaf Scholz (born June 14, 1958, Osnabrück, West Germany [now in Germany]) is a German politician who became chancellor of Germany in 2021. A longtime member of Germany’s centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), Scholz served as finance minister and vice chancellor in the “grand coalition” government of Angela Merkel (2018–21) before succeeding her as chancellor.

Early life and education

Scholz was born in Osnabrück in northwestern West Germany, and his parents worked in the textile industry. He was still a child when his family moved to Hamburg, West Germany’s commercial capital, and that city would figure prominently in his personal and political life. In 1975, while still a high-school student, he joined the Social Democratic Party. From 1978 to 1984 he studied law at the University of Hamburg, and throughout this time he was active in the SPD’s youth organization. Identifying himself as a Marxist, he became a prominent member of the party’s radical wing, and he was especially critical of the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe.

Scholz earned a law degree in 1985 and established his own firm in Hamburg, specializing in labour law. The swift and unexpected collapse of the communist regime in East Germany in 1989 paved the way for the reunification of Germany, and the German labour market was radically reshaped almost overnight. Sholz had often represented workers who were engaged in disputes with employers, but after reunification he also negotiated with the Treuhandanstalt, a government-owned trust that oversaw the privatization of East German industry. During this period Scholz began to move toward the political centre. When he made his debut in electoral politics in 1998, he was regarded as a moderate within the SPD. That same year he married Britta Ernst, a Hamburg-area politician who was also active in the SPD.

Political career and path to the chancellorship

In 1998 Scholz entered the Bundestag, representing the constituency of Hamburg-Altona, after a general election that saw the SPD capitalize on a faltering economy and general voter weariness to sweep aside the 16-year government of Christian Democratic Union chancellor Helmut Kohl. The SPD was able to form a coalition with the Greens, and Gerhard Schröder was named chancellor. Scholz became something of a protégé of Schröder, and this relationship allowed Scholz to ascend through the SPD ranks relatively quickly. In 2001 Scholz paused his term in the Bundestag to serve a brief stint as interior senator in the Hamburg government.

Scholz returned to the Bundestag in 2002 and was made general secretary of the SPD, a post that he filled until 2004. In this role Scholz was frequently tasked with defending Schröder’s economic reforms to the media, and his dry, almost mechanical interview style earned him the nickname “Scholzomat.” Although the robotic cognomen was far from flattering, Scholz himself acknowledged that it was “not an entirely false description” of his manner of speech. Schröder’s changes to Germany’s welfare system were enormously unpopular within the SPD, leading to a schism within the party. After the SPD performed poorly in the 2005 regional elections, Schröder called for an early federal election, and the result was a virtual dead heat between the SPD and CDU. With neither major party receiving a clear mandate and negotiations with minor parties going nowhere, a “grand coalition” was formed consisting of the SPD, the CDU, and the Christian Social Union (CSU), the CDU’s Bavarian sister party. Angela Merkel of the CDU became chancellor, and Scholz became first parliamentary secretary for the SPD.

In 2007 Scholz joined Merkel’s cabinet as minister of labour and social affairs, and his policies would prove crucial in insulating Germany from the worst effects of the Great Recession. Of particular note was Scholz’s use of Kurzarbeit(“short-time work”) to control unemployment; instead of resorting to mass layoffs, employers reduced workers’ hours, and the government made up a significant portion of the missing salary. Ironically, the SPD’s successes as junior partner in a “grand coalition” worked against it at the ballot box in 2009, as voters overwhelmingly credited Merkel with the achievements of her government and handed the SPD its worst electoral showing since 1949. The SPD became the opposition, and Scholz became deputy chair of the party.

In 2011 Scholz left the Bundestag and returned to Hamburg to campaign for the office of first mayor. Hamburg was historically an SPD stronghold, but the government of the city-state had been under CDU control since 2001. Stalled infrastructure projects and persistent budget shortfalls had plagued the CDU administration, and Scholz capitalized on voter dissatisfaction to sweep into office with a commanding majority in the Bürgerschaft (state parliament). Scholz jump-started construction on the moribund Elbphilharmonie concert hall and breathed new life into Hamburg’s HafenCity port district. He expanded the city’s public transit system, shepherded a plan to deepen and widen the Elbe to accommodate larger container ships, abolished university tuition fees, and increased spending on day-care services. Having accomplished all this while improving Hamburg’s finances, Scholz and the SPD easily won reelection in 2015.

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Scholz’s tenure as mayor was not without setbacks, however. His proposal to pursue a bid for the 2024 Olympic Games was voted down in a popular referendum, and violent clashes between police and protesters marred a summit of the G20 in 2017. After the September 2017 federal election left Germany’s two major parties with barely half of the vote and months of negotiations failed to yield a workable government, the SPD proposed another grand coalition as an alternative to a rerun of the election. Merkel secured a fourth term as chancellor in March 2018, and Scholz was named vice chancellor and finance minister.

In October 2018, after a dismal showing by the CDU in regional elections, Merkel announced that she would retire in 2021. The path appeared open for Scholz to put himself forward as a possible successor to Germany’s “eternal chancellor,” especially after SPD leader Andrea Nahles resigned in June 2019. In his bid for SPD leadership that November, however, Scholz was soundly beaten by a pair of relative unknowns from the party’s left wing, and for a moment the future of the grand coalition itself was in jeopardy. The SPD’s approval rating was in the low teens, and the Greens were poised to displace the SPD as Germany’s most powerful centre-left party. Scholz’s political influence seemed to be at its nadir when the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic upended daily life in early 2020. Nonessential businesses were closed, and cities were locked down in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, the potentially fatal disease caused by the virus.

Merkel’s government had historically responded to times of crisis by embracing austerity measures to control spending, but in September 2020 Scholz suspended the schwarze Null (“black zero”), a balanced-budget rule enshrined in the German constitution. As the German economy reeled, hundreds of billions of euros in deficit spending were used to fund a massive rescue package that was designed to support businesses and workers through the worst days of the pandemic. Scholz’s use of the Kurzarbeit scheme once again kept unemployment numbers under control, and the widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines in 2021 allowed for the partial reopening of the economy. Scholz became the face of the administration’s economic response to the pandemic, and in the months leading up to the September 2021 general election his stock with voters began to rise. Despite his defeat in the 2019 party leadership contest, he had been selected to serve as the SPD’s candidate for chancellor, and Scholz’s presence on the SPD ticket proved a boon for centrist voters who were seeking a sense of continuity with the Merkel administration. A resurgent SPD was soon leading in the polls, and Scholz’s candidacy was boosted by strong performances in televised debates, a lacklustre campaign by CDU leader Armin Laschet, and missteps by Green candidate Annalena Baerbock.

On September 26, 2021, German voters handed the SPD a narrow victory over the CDU-CSU, and Scholz immediately ruled out a continuance of the grand coalition. Negotiations began between the SPD, the Greens, and the classical liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), and in December 2021 the three parties reached an agreement about the makeup of their government. Scholz would become chancellor, and FDP leader Christian Lindner would succeed Scholz as finance minister. Baerbock would assume the powerful foreign affairs portfolio, and Robert Habeck, her Green Party co-leader, would head a new “super ministry” overseeing Germany’s conversion to a green economy. Scholz’s cabinet, which was composed of eight men and eight women, was the first in German history to be gender-equal.

Scholz as chancellor of Germany

On December 8, 2021, Scholz was sworn in as chancellor in a ceremony that was notable for his omission of the words “so help me God” from the oath of office. Scholz was the second German chancellor to modify the oath in such a way; the first was his mentor, Schröder. Scholz was not afforded any sort of honeymoon period, as an array of foreign and domestic issues required his immediate attention. A new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 variant had caused COVID-19 cases in Germany to surge to record levels in late 2021, and Scholz’s government struggled to address hesitancy among the one-fourth of Germans who had opted not to receive a vaccine. On the European Union’s eastern flank, Belarusian Pres. Alexander Lukashenko was retaliating against an EU sanctions regime by engineering a migrant crisis. Thousands of immigrants, primarily from the Middle East, flew into Minsk and were then taken to the Belarusian frontier, where many were helped to cross into Poland or Lithuania by Belarusian border guards.

These issues abruptly faded into the background, as the greatest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War began to unfold along Russia’s border with Ukraine. Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin had initiated a massive buildup of troops and equipment in Russia, Belarus, and Russian-occupied Crimea, and Western intelligence officials interpreted the move as the prelude to an invasion. Putin denied any such intent, and Scholz initially appeared reluctant to jeopardize commercial links with Russia, which was a vital gas supplier. Complicating matters further were Schröder’s extensive ties with Russian business concerns as well as his close personal relationship with Putin. On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and the United States and many EU countries called for immediate sanctions. Although Scholz had already suspended certification of Nord Stream 2, a controversial Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline, he cautioned against measures such as cutting off Russia from the SWIFT financial payment system. Within days, however, Scholz announced a dramatic pivot in Germany’s foreign policy and defense posture. At a special meeting of the Bundestag, Scholz declared that Russia’s aggression signaled a Zeitenwende (“new era”) in the history of Europe and that this watershed moment required an “unequivocal response” from Germany. Scholz reversed a post-World War II practice of refusing to send lethal weapons to active combat zones and dispatched 1,000 antitank weapons and 500 Stinger surface-to-air missiles to aid the defenders of Ukraine. He also announced the creation of a €100 billion fund to improve and modernize the German military and committed to an ongoing annual investment of 2 percent of Germany’s gross domestic product on defense.