Book Joschka Fischer

Joschka Fischer is a German statesman and a defining figure of the Alliance 90/The Greens party, who served as Germany's foreign minister and vice chancellor under Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005. A leader of the German Greens since the 1970s, he entered the Bundestag in 1983 and in 1985 became environment minister in Hesse, part of the first governing coalition between the Social Democrats and the Greens, famously taking his oath of office in sneakers that now sit in a German shoe museum. During the Schröder years, polls consistently ranked him as the country's most popular politician. After leaving office in November 2005 he joined Princeton University and, in 2010, backed the creation of the Spinelli Group, an initiative to push for a more federal European Union. His honors include the Buber Rosenzweig Medal, the Gottlieb Duttweiler Prize, the German Leo Baeck Award, Estonia's Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana and honorary doctorates from Tel Aviv University and the University of Haifa. Fischer is a commanding, candid speaker on Europe, transatlantic relations, geopolitics and the politics of climate and environment.