Gerhard Trabert

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Gerhard Trabert
Vorstellung von Gerhard Trabert, Kandidat zur Wahl des Bundesprasidenten - 51815082794 (cropped).jpg
Gerhard Trabert in 2022
Born (1956-07-03) 3 July 1956 (age 68)
Mainz (then West Germany)
Political party The Left

Gerhard Max Trabert (born 3 July 1956) is a German public figure. [1] By profession he is a general practitioner and emergency medicine doctor but is also known as a professor of social medicine and social psychiatry, as well as an author of books. In the 1970s, he was involved in professional sports.

Contents

He was also a political candidate for Die Linke in the 2022 German presidential election and the 2021 German federal election. He will be the top candidate on the Rhineland-Palatinate state list in the 2025 German federal election. [2]

Life and work

Gerhard Trabert was born in Mainz in July 1956. During his childhood, he spent a lot of time in the orphanage where his father worked as an educator. This experience made him aware of the suffering felt by disadvantaged people at an early age.

Trabert studied social work at the Wiesbaden University of Applied Sciences from 1975 to 1979, graduating with a degree in social education. After completing his studies, Trabert worked in medical social work. In 1983 he began studying human medicine, which he completed in 1989 at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. During his studies, Trabert received a scholarship from the Evangelischen Studienwerks Villigst  [ de ]. After completing his studies, Trabert was awarded a doctorate in medicine by the medical faculty of the University of Mainz with his dissertation on the health situation and medical care of homeless people. Trabert worked clinically for ten years in hospitals in Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. His focus was internal medicine, specifically the medical and psychosocial care of oncology patients. He trained as a general practitioner for family medicine and as an emergency medicine doctor. From the beginning of his medical career, he completed numerous assignments abroad, including in India , Bangladesh and the United States.

Gerhard Trabert Gerhard Trabert.jpg
Gerhard Trabert

During his trip through India, Trabert became acquainted with the "outreach health care concept" Medical Streetwork, which primarily treated patients with leprosy. The guiding principle of this concept is: "If the patient does not come to the doctor, the doctor comes to the patient." Inspired by this work and his experiences there, he transferred this medical approach to the health care of homeless people. In 1994, he founded the Mainz Model, [3] a medical care facility for homeless people. With a "mobile doctor", Trabert and his colleagues visit certain locations and offer medical help free of charge. Trabert was the first doctor in Germany to receive statutory health insurance approval for this form of mobile practice.

He is the author of numerous specialist articles on the subject of poverty and health, child poverty, poverty and suicidality, and children of parents with cancer. Trabert is also the author of children's books on the subject of cancer. In 1998 he founded the Poverty and Health in Germany  [ de ] association, and is a member of the National Poverty Conference  [ de ]. He is also the founder and chairman of the Flüsterpost association. From 1999 to 2009 he was a professor of medicine and social medicine at the Georg Simon Ohm University in Nuremberg, and since 2009 he has been a professor of social medicine and social psychiatry in the social work department at the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences. He is also the owner of the G. Trabert publishing house.

In 2013, Trabert set up the “Ambulance without Borders” in the city of Mainz. The organisation employs twenty doctors, nurses and social workers and provides uninsured patients including homeless people with free medical treatment. [4]

Sport

Trabert at the 1975 European Junior Championships EM 1975.jpg
Trabert at the 1975 European Junior Championships

Before and during his studies, Gerhard Trabert was part of the German junior and student national athletics team. His sporting successes include the silver medal in the 4 x 400 meter race at the 1975 European Athletics Junior Championships and the bronze medal in the 4 x 400 meter race at the 1977 FISU World University Games. His best time of 1:49.26 minutes for 800 meters, which Trabert set in 1981, is still included in the list of the "Eternal Top Ten" of the USC Mainz. [5]

Politics

In the 2021 German federal election, Trabert ran as an direct candidate for the Die Linke party for the Mainz constituency but was not on the party's state list in Rhineland-Palatinate. [6] In the election on 26 September, he came in 4th place with 12.7% of the vote and thus missed out on a place in the Bundestag. This made him the best first vote result of a candidate from the Left Party in West Germany in the 2021 election.

In the 2022 German presidential election on 13 February 2022, Die Linke nominated Trabert as its candidate against the incumbent Frank-Walter Steinmeier who was running for another term. Trabert wanted to use this candidacy, in his own words, to draw attention to poverty and social injustice in Germany: "It's not about me. It's about the people I'm committed to," he said. [7] [8] Trabert received 96 of the 1,437 votes cast in the Federal Assembly, 25 more than the number of representatives The Left had. [9]

Re-elected President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier addressed Trabert directly in his speech on February 13, 2022:

"Permit me, dear Professor Trabert, to say one more thing. With your candidacy, you have drawn attention to an issue that deserves more attention: the situation of the poorest and most vulnerable in our country. You deserve not only respect for this, but I hope that your momentum will continue." – Frank-Walter Steinmeier

Steinmeier also suggested a meeting with Trabert in order to "bring more attention to this pressing issue together". [10] This meeting took place on 4 March 2022 at Bellevue Palace. They discussed concrete measures and actions to help poor people. [11]

The promised visit of the Federal President to Mainz took place on June 2, 2022. Steinmeier visited the mobile doctor's unit for the homeless and was very impressed by Trabert's work. Long-term cooperation in combating poverty was discussed.

As part of his candidacy, Trabert pointed out the turning a blind eye to the conditions of refugees and poor people in Germany and drew a parallel to the turning a blind eye to the atrocities committed by the Nazis during the National Socialist era: "Just as many Germans knew back then what was happening to the Jews, today we know what is happening to refugees in the Mediterranean, in Libyan and Syrian camps. We know how poverty is increasing, we know about the increased death rate of poor people here in Germany too."

Trabert also said of the situation in Germany: "The courts are also abusing their power to silence criticism in this democracy. We cannot accept that." Although Trabert was referring to the criminalization of sea rescue workers, his statements were criticized from various sides. [12] [13] [14] [15]

At the end of 2022, Trabert was one of the first signatories of a petition and campaign by DiEM25 to abandon the debt brake of the German balanced budget amendment. [16]

In February 2023, he was the first signatory of the "Manifesto for Peace" petition to Olaf Scholz, initiated by Sahra Wagenknecht and Alice Schwarzer, which called for diplomacy and negotiations and against further "escalating arms deliveries" to Ukraine in the wake of the Russian invasion.

In July 2023, the Die Linke Party Executive  [ de ] proposed Trabert for fourth place on the party's candidate list for the 2024 European elections. [17] Since the party received only three seats with 2.7 percent of the vote, he missed out on a place in the European Parliament.

In the 2025 German federal election, Trabert will run again in the Mainz constituency. [18] He will be the top candidate on the Rhineland-Palatinate state list. [2]

International missions

Honours and awards

Trabert has received numerous awards, including the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, [21] the Order of Merit of Rhineland-Palatinate [21] and the Paracelsus Medal  [ de ]. [21] In 2019, Trabert was the first university of applied sciences teacher to receive the "University Teacher of the Year  [ de ]" award, worth 10,000 euros ; the ceremony was scheduled to take place on April 6, 2020, as part of the "Gala of German Science" in Berlin, but was cancelled due to the coronavirus.

Sports

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References

  1. ↑ "Stimmzettel für die Wahl der Abgeordneten des Europäischen Parlaments am 9. Juni 2024 im Land Nordrhein-Westfalen - Muster" (PDF) (in German). Ministerium des Innern des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen. Retrieved 2024-06-10.
  2. 1 2 tagesschau.de. Die Linke in RLP zieht mit Spitzenkandidat Gerhard Trabert in den Bundestagswahlkampf (in German). Retrieved 2024-12-31– via www.tagesschau.de.
  3. ↑ "Armut und Gesundheit in Deutschland" (in German). Retrieved 2022-01-11.
  4. ↑ "Arzt der Benachteiligten — Gerhard Trabert – Veto Magazin" (in German). Retrieved 2024-12-31.
  5. ↑ "Ewige Bestenliste des USC Mainz - Top 10 (Stand: September 2021)". Universitäts-Sportclub Mainz. September 2021. Retrieved 2022-01-11.
  6. ↑ VRM GmbH & Co KG (2021-05-08). "Bundestagswahl: Linke nominiert Gerhard Trabert" . Retrieved 2021-05-08.
  7. ↑ Boris Herrmann (2022-01-09). "Dieser Mann tritt gegen Steinmeier an". Süddeutsche Zeitung. Retrieved 2022-01-10.
  8. ↑ "Linke nominiert Sozialmediziner Trabert". Tagesschau. Norddeutscher Rundfunk. 2022-01-09. Retrieved 2022-01-09.
  9. ↑ "Deutscher Bundestag - Frank-Walter Steinmeier als Bundespräsident wiedergewählt" (in German). Retrieved 2022-02-13.
  10. ↑ "Bundespräsident Frank-Walter Steinmeier nach seiner Wiederwahl zum Bundespräsidenten durch die 17. Bundesversammlung am 13. Februar 2022 in Berlin" (PDF). Bundespräsidialamt. 2022-02-13. Retrieved 2022-02-13.
  11. ↑ "Mainzer Obdachlosenarzt Trabert spricht mit Steinmeier über Projekte für arme Menschen". swr.online. swr Aktuell. 2022-03-04. Archived from the original on 2022-03-05. Retrieved 2022-03-06.
  12. ↑ ""Gerichte missbrauchen ihre Macht, um Kritik mundtot zu machen"". t-online.de . 2022-01-15. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  13. ↑ Crefeld, Sven (2022-01-15). "Kritik an linkem Präsidentschaftskandidaten wegen Juden-Vergleich". Die Zeit . Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  14. ↑ "Linken-Kandidat für Bundespräsidentenwahl zieht Parallele zur NS-Zeit". Der Spiegel . 2022-01-15. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  15. ↑ "Trabert zieht bei Armut Parallele zur NS-Zeit". 15 January 2022. Retrieved 2022-01-25.
  16. ↑ "Stoppt die Schuldenbremse!". Kampagne "Stoppt die Schuldenbremse!" (in German). DiEM25. Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  17. ↑ "Carola Rackete: Ärger bei Linken – "Geisterfahrt der politischen Führung"". Welt (in German). 2023-08-05. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  18. ↑ Petra Jung (2024-11-14). "Bundestagswahl: Gerhard Trabert tritt für Die Linke an". allgemeine-zeitung.de. Retrieved 2024-11-30.
  19. ↑ "Flüchtlinge in Griechenland - Lesbos: 1.500 Kinder "absolut zu wenig"". ZDF (in German). 2020-03-11. Retrieved 2020-07-31.
  20. ↑ Rhein-Zeitung (25 July 2021). "Weltweite Unterstützung für das Katastrophengebiet". Rhein-Zeitung. Retrieved 2022-01-10.
  21. 1 2 3 Nicole Weisheit-Zenz (2017). "Gerhard Trabert: Gratwanderungen". ISBN 978-3-9812304-4-4. Roland Reischl Verlag. Archived from the original on 2020-01-13. Retrieved 2020-01-13.
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