Fritz Kuhn

Fritz Kuhn ( born June 29, 1955 in Bad Mergentheim ) is a German politician ( Alliance 90/The Greens ) and Mayor of Baden- Württemberg's capital Stuttgart. He was 2000-2002 National Chairman of the Alliance 90/The Greens and 2005-2009 Chairman of the Green Parliamentary Group.

Life and career

Kuhn was born the son of a simple official who worked in the army, 1955 in Bad Mergentheim. He grew up in Memmingen. As a student of the local Bernhard Striegel - Gymnasium, Kuhn engaged politically in the domains of Memminger Young Socialists, in the SMV and as Head Boy. After the Lord Mayor John Bauer had terminated a dramaturge of the Memmingen theater in the fall of 1973, Kuhn was involved in organizing a large demonstration.

After graduating from high school in 1974 in Memmingen Kuhn holds a degree in German and Philosophy at the Ludwig- Maximilians- University of Munich and the University of Tübingen, he in 1980 as a Master of Arts (MA) with a focus on finished linguistics. Subsequently, he was from 1981 to 1984 worked as a research assistant at the University of Augsburg and a consultant to the parliamentary group of the Greens in Baden- Württemberg. From 1989 to 1992 Kuhn worked as a lecturer in linguistic communication at the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart. 2013 Kuhn was the successor of Frieder Birzele Chairman of the Adult Education Association of Baden- Württemberg.

Kuhn is married to the former Green Party member of parliament Waltraud Ulshöfer and has two sons.

Political activity

Kuhn was a student member of the SPD, which he left in 1978 but due to the policy of Helmut Schmidt. In 1980 he was one of the founding members of the Green Party in Baden- Württemberg. From 1991 to 1992 he was the spokesman in the Executive Regional Executive. From 1984 to 1988 and from 1992 to 2000 Kuhn was a member of the state parliament of Baden -Württemberg and was in each case chairman of the parliamentary group of the Greens. After the 1998 election he was part of the delegation of the Green Party in the coalition negotiations with the SPD.

From June 2000 to December 2002 Kuhn was first together with Renate Künast and from March 2001 with Claudia Roth National Chairman of the Alliance 90/The Greens. From 2002 to January 2013 he was a member of the German Bundestag. He represented the electoral district of Heidelberg, but moved constantly over the national list Baden -Württemberg in the Bundestag. In the Bundestag, he initially managed the Group's Working Group Economy and Labour was then February to October 2005 Exterior spokesman for the Alliance 90/The Greens parliamentary group. During the campaign for the parliamentary elections in 2005, Kuhn was the campaign manager of the Federal Party. He belonged to the party council of the Greens, but failed in 2008 with his candidacy and therefore resigned from the Board of.

On 27 September 2005, Kuhn and Renate Künast were elected to the chairman of the parliamentary group Alliance 90/The Greens. After the 2009 parliamentary elections, he did not run for this office. Kuhn, however, was elected one of the vice-chairman. With the assumption of office as mayor of Stuttgart, he left in January 2013 from the Bundestag.

In February 2012, he resigned from the deputy parliamentary leader, to run for the office of Mayor of Stuttgart. Kuhn was nominated by a General Assembly as a candidate of his party in March 2012. In the elections on October 7, 2012 Kuhn reached by a narrow margin over a third of the votes. Since no candidate won an absolute majority, a second ballot was required, in which a relative majority sufficed. Kuhn won the second ballot on 21 October 2012, 52.9 % of the vote against the support of the CDU, FDP and the liberal voters without party candidate Sebastian Turner.

Kuhn's term began on January 7, 2013., Making him the first Green mayor of a state capital. In his inaugural speech Kuhn criticized the lack of transparency in the Stuttgart 21 project, which had led to a " crisis of confidence ", and declared his intention to discuss alternatives.