Grandson of Willy Brandt
The political grandsons of Willy Brandt were younger top politicians of the SPD who did not directly succeed him, such as Helmut Schmidt as Federal Chancellor and Hans-Jochen Vogel as SPD chairman, but who at the time of Brandt's SPD chairmanship still represented a management reserve of the SPD.
This included the SPD minister-presidents and later party leaders Björn Engholm , Rudolf Scharping , Oskar Lafontaine and Gerhard Schröder . The first two can be said to have had little success as party chairmen. As a federal politician, Lafontaine showed dramatic weaknesses when trying to assert himself against Schröder. Schröder himself did much better as chancellor than as party chairman. Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul , who was also counted among the "grandchildren", never had a very prominent position and was therefore not so worn out. Her failure in the 1993 strike vote among party members to succeed Björn Engholm can of course be seen as an early departure from the group of grandchildren.
literature
- Matthias Micus: The "grandchildren" of Willy Brandts - the rise and political style of an SPD generation , Campus Verlag, 2005