Klaus Wowereit
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Klaus Wowereit (*1 October 1953 in Berlin) is a German politician. He has been the SPD Governing Mayor of Berlin, Germany since 2001. He and his party won 31.4% of the votes in the 2001 state elections], and he started a coalition government with Linkspartei.PDS. He was President of the Bundesrat in 2001/02. He was re-elected as Governing Mayor in 2006, and has carried on the coalition.
He supports Kurt Beck as "Kanzlerkandidat", the SPDs nominee for the Chancellorship of Germany. Many people wanted Wowereit to be the candidate, not so many after he decided to stay in coalition with Die Linke after the 2006 elecctions.
He is also gay.
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[change] Background
Until 1973, Klaus Wowereit went to the Ulrich-von-Hutten-Oberschule in Berlin, then he went up to the Free University Berlin to study law. He took his first State Exams in 1981 and the second set in 1984).
[change] Political career
After university Woweriet spent three years as a civil servant in the Senate Office (that is, Ministry) of the Interior. At the age of 30, he was became the youngest councillor in the city of Berlin when he was elected a councillor of Tempelhof Borough. After eleven years he stood for the Berlin House of Deputies Abgeordnetenhaus which is City's Landtag or state legislature in 1995. In December 1999, he was elected chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the Abgeordnetenhaus. Since June 2001 he has served as Governing Mayor, Regierender Bürgermeister, of Berlin.
[change] Sexual orientation
Wowereit is one of the most famous German politicians who has openly declared himself homosexual. He came out at a convention of the Berlin SPD just before the 2001 mayoral elections, when he said "Ich bin schwul, und das ist auch gut so." "I am gay, and it's ok that way"). This is now a famouse quotation in German. He probably came out so that the tabloid newspapers could not publish what they thought were embarrassing stories about him.
Wowereit is not the only gay mayor of a large European city. Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris, is openly gay, and Ole von Beust, the mayor of Hamburg, is also gay.[1]
In September 2007, Wowereit published an autobiography called "...und das ist auch gut so.", after his famous coming out phrase.[2]
[change] Notes and references
- ↑ While Beust's father has confirmed his son's homosexuality in an interview, Beust himself considers his sexual orientation a private matter and when asked directly usually ironically refers the questioner to his father.
- ↑ * Klaus Wowereit: ... und das ist auch gut so : mein Leben für die Politik Blessing, München 2007, ISBN 3896673343
[change] Other websites
| Came after: Eberhard Diepgen |
Mayor of Berlin 2001- |
Came before: incumbent |
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Karl Arnold • Hans Ehard • Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf • Reinhold Maier • Georg August Zinn • Peter Altmeier • Kai-Uwe von Hassel • Kurt Sieveking • Willy Brandt • Wilhelm Kaisen • Franz-Josef Röder • Franz Meyers • Hans Ehard • Kurt Georg Kiesinger • Georg Diederichs • Georg August Zinn • Peter Altmeier • Helmut Lemke • Klaus Schütz • Herbert Weichmann • Franz-Josef Röder • Hans Koschnick • Heinz Kühn • Alfons Goppel • Hans Filbinger • Alfred Kubel • Albert Osswald • Bernhard Vogel • Gerhard Stoltenberg • Dietrich Stobbe • Hans-Ulrich Klose • Werner Zeyer • Hans Koschnick • Johannes Rau • Franz Josef Strauß • Lothar Späth • Ernst Albrecht • Holger Börner • Walter Wallmann • Bernhard Vogel • Björn Engholm • Walter Momper • Henning Voscherau • Alfred Gomolka • Berndt Seite • Oskar Lafontaine • Klaus Wedemeier • Johannes Rau • Edmund Stoiber • Erwin Teufel • Gerhard Schröder • Hans Eichel • Roland Koch • Kurt Biedenkopf • Kurt Beck • Klaus Wowereit • Wolfgang Böhmer • Dieter Althaus • Matthias Platzeck • Peter Harry Carstensen • Harald Ringstorff |
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| East Berlin | Friedrich Ebert · Herbert Fechner · Erhard Krack · Ingrid Pankraz · Dr. Christian Hartenauer · Tino Schwierzina · Thomas Krüger | .svg/60px-Flag_of_Berlin_(banner).svg.png) |
| West Berlin | Ernst Reuter · Walther Schreiber · Otto Suhr · Willy Brandt · Heinrich Albertz · Klaus Schütz · Dietrich Stobbe · Hans-Jochen Vogel · Richard von Weizsäcker · Eberhard Diepgen · Walter Momper | |
| Reunited Berlin (since 1990) |
Walter Momper · Eberhard Diepgen · Klaus Wowereit | |
