Joschka Fischer finding himself - going where to?

Joschka Fischer is surely one of the very few politicians who are both very successful in the international arena and who did never finish college.

Hence never been regularly registered in an university, he nevertheless studied the theories of politics and society and engaged in the student-protest-movement of 1968. He gained his life as a photographer or taxi-driver, but interested more in radical politics, became the typical street-fighting man of these years: demonstrations, occupations of empty houses, political agitation in factories were the most important jobs for the people in the “Sponti”-movement. He has also been arrested for some days.

Disillusioned by the activities of the RAF-terrorists, he turned to become the most influential “realist” in the new founded Green-party. He was the pragmatist in a movement that was build up by more or less radical idealists (called “fundamentalists”): ecologists, pacifists, feminists, leftists, opponents of the nuclear-industry.. Some of the average Germans were shocked by the long-haired, bearded people wearing woollen pullovers and criticising the western welfare-societies.
Fischer became minister of environment in Hessen and provoked the public by wearing jeans and sport sneakers in the parliament (today, you can find these shoes in a glass vitrine somewhere), calling the federal president an “asshole” in a very polite way (“Mit Verlaub, Herr Präsident, Sie sind ein Arschloch.”).

In the 1990s Fischer changed again. He now became an ascetic running marathons – he lost 35 kilos weight (the kilos would return later after he wrote a book called “The long run to myself”). He said good-bye to the more radical positions, was criticised in his own party for favouring international military activities, such as the NATO´s in the Kosovo.
As foreign minister since 1998 he became the most popular German politician who gained both national and international respect. Without him, the Socialdemocrats and Greens would not have won the elections in 2002 again.

After the elections 2 weeks back he surprisingly announced to retire from his leading position in the party. Now, people are speculating about his further plans – maybe he wants to continue his career in the European parliament (or in the UNO). In my eyes, he is still the best politician that we have here – and in his own words he is “the last rock´ n´roller in German politics”..