Torsten Wolf | |
---|---|
Member of the Landtag of Thuringia | |
Assumed office 14 September 2014 | |
Preceded by | Christoph Matschie |
Constituency | Jena I |
Majority | 10,253 (31.5%) |
Chairman of the Education and Science Union Thuringia | |
In office September 2010 –September 2014 | |
Preceded by | Jürgen Röhreich |
Succeeded by | Kathrin Vitzthum |
Personal details | |
Born | Torsten Wolf 27 April 1968 Wurzen,East Germany |
Political party | The Left |
Alma mater | University of Jena |
Torsten Wolf (born 27 April 1968) is a German politician of The Left who has served as a member of the Landtag of Thuringia since 2014. [1] [2]
Wolf grew up in Ilmenau,then in East Germany,in 1968. He was involved in the opposition environmental movement with the Protestant Church since he was a schoolboy,for which he was targeted by the local government and Stasi. [1] He completed an apprenticeship as a maintenance mechanic and worked for the water management authority. [2] After applying for an exit visa in November 1987 at the age of 19,Wolf fled to West Germany on 18 May 1988,where he worked in factories in Schwäbisch Gmünd and Kassel. After German reunification,he returned to Ilmenau in 1992 and resumed his studies. He attended the Ilmenau College and acquired his Abitur in 1995,and completed a degree in political science,economics and modern history at the University of Jena in 2000. [1]
In 2001,Wolf joined the German Trade Union Confederation initially working as a qualification coordinator,then as secretary of the East Thuringia region from 2003. [2] He was state chairman of the Education and Science Union (GEW) from 2010 to 2014. [3] [4]
Wolf was initially a member of the Social Democratic Party,but later switched to The Left. [1] He ran for the Left in the constituency of Jena I in the 2014 Thuringian state election against SPD incumbent Christoph Matschie,and won with 29.7% of votes. [5] He was re-elected in 2019. [6]
Thuringia,officially the Free State of Thuringia,is one of Germany's 16 states with 2.1 million people,its 12th-largest by population,and with 16,171 square kilometers,its 11th-largest in area.
Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was a German state,created as a duchy in 1809 by the merger of the Ernestine duchies of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach,which had been in personal union since 1741. It was raised to a grand duchy in 1815 by resolution of the Congress of Vienna. In 1903,it officially changed its name to the Grand Duchy of Saxony,but this name was rarely used. The grand duchy came to an end in the German Revolution of 1918–19 with the other monarchies of the German Empire. It was succeeded by the Free State of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach,which was merged into the new Free State of Thuringia two years later.
Bodo Ramelow is a German politician who has served since 4 March 2020 as Minister-President of Thuringia,an office he previously held from 2014 to 5 February 2020. He is the first head of a German state government to serve non-consecutive terms in office since Eberhard Diepgen,who served twice as Governing Mayor of Berlin. A member of The Left,he previously chaired the party's group in the Landtag of Thuringia. On 8 October 2021,he was elected to a one-year term as President of the Bundesrat. His term lasted from 1 November 2021 until 31 October 2022.
The 2014 Thuringian state election was held on 14 September 2014 to elect the members of the 6th Landtag of Thuringia. The government prior to the election was a grand coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD) led by Minister-President Christine Lieberknecht. The government narrowly retained its majority. However,the SPD chose not to renew the coalition,instead pursuing an agreement to enter as a junior partner in a coalition with The Left and The Greens. After a vote of the SPD membership showed a majority in favour,the SPD went ahead with the agreement.
Christoph Matschie is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as Deputy Minister-President of Thuringia between 2009 and 2014. He was also a member of the Bundestag from 1999 to 2004 and from 2017 to 2021.
Mark Lars Carsten Hauptmann was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) who served as a member of the German Bundestag from 2013 until 2021.
Wiebke Muhsal is a German politician with the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Since 2014,she is a member of the Landtag of Thuringia and deputy chairman of the AfD caucus. She is also her party's critic on family and education policy and is a member of the Parliamentary Committee on Education,Youth and Sports.
Dagmar Elisabeth Schipanski was a German physicist,academic,and politician from Thuringia. Although best known for her 1999 nomination as President of Germany by the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party,the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU),Schipanski held a variety of political and academic roles during her four-decade-long career and was awarded numerous honors,most notably the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1996.
The 2024 Thuringian state election was held on 1 September 2024 to elect the members of the 8th Landtag of Thuringia. It was held on the same day as the 2024 Saxony state election.
Torsten Herbst is a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Saxony since 2017. In 2021,he was elected whip of the FDP parliamentary group.
Susanne Hennig-Wellsow is a German politician. She was federal co-chairwoman of The Left from 2021 to 2022 and has served as a member of the Bundestag for Thuringia since 2021. Previously,she was a member of the Landtag of Thuringia from 2004 to 2021,leader of the Thuringia branch of The Left since November 2013,and leader of the state parliamentary group since December 2014.
Ilm-Kreis I is an electoral constituency represented in the Landtag of Thuringia. It elects one member via first-past-the-post voting. Under the current constituency numbering system,it is designated as constituency 22. It covers the southern part of Ilm-Kreis.
Jena I is an electoral constituency represented in the Landtag of Thuringia. It elects one member via first-past-the-post voting. Under the current constituency numbering system,it is designated as constituency 37. It covers the western part of Jena.
Anja Siegesmund is a German politician of Alliance 90/The Greens. Between 2014 and 2023,she served as Minister of the Environment in the state government of Thuringia in the coalition government of Bodo Ramelow. Until 31 January 2023,she was also Second Deputy Minister-President of Thuringia. From 2009 to 2014 she was leader of the Greens parliamentary group in the Landtag of Thuringia. She was a member of the Landtag from 2009 to 2015,then again from 2019 to 2020. In December 2022 she announced her imminent resignation from her political offices;on 1 February 2023 she was succeeded by Bernhard Stengele.
Birgit Pommer is a German politician of The Left who has served as President of the Landtag of Thuringia from 2019 to 2024. She is the first member of her party to serve as speaker of any state parliament. Prior,she served as Minister for Infrastructure and Agriculture in the first Ramelow cabinet.
Karola Stange is a German politician of The Left who has served as a member of the Landtag of Thuringia since 2009. She has also been a member of the Erfurt city council since 1999,and unsuccessfully ran for mayor of the city in 2006 and 2018.
Mario Voigt is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as the leader of the CDU in the State Parliament of Thuringia since 2020. He has been a member of the State Parliament since 2009. He previously served as co-deputy leader of the Thuringian CDU from 2014 to 2020,and general-secretary of the party from 2010 to 2014.
Gerd Schuchardt is an electrical engineer who built his career and reputation in East Germany before 1990 in microprocessor technology and related forward-looking branches of science. He was interested in politics,but had avoided involvement in the country's ruling SED (party) or any of the various so-called "bloc parties" which it controlled. In January 1990,with the winds of political change - somewhat implausibly,as many still thought at the time - blowing across from the Kremlin in Moscow,the party leaders in East Berlin no longer felt able to stand against domestic pressures for a return to democratic politics after more than half a century of one-party dictatorship. Gerd Schuchardt became an activist member of the re-awakening Social Democratic Party. After reunification in October 1990 state-level democratic politics returned to Thuringia:Schuchardt became a leading figure in Thuringian state politics,selected by party members as the Social Democratic Party's lead candidate in the 1994 Thuringian state election. He led his party to what turned out to be its best electoral result in Thuringia to date. In the resulting "Grand coalition" government that ensued he served as vice-minister-president until 1999 under the leadership of Bernhard Vogel (CDU) and as Minister for the Sciences,Research and the Arts.
Torben Braga is a German politician of the Alternative for Germany (AfD),previously FDP. He entered the state parliament of Thuringia after the state elections of 27 October 2019.
Stefan Möller is a German politician from Alternative for Germany. Since 2014 he has been one of the two state spokespersons of the AfD Thuringia and a member of the Landtag of Thuringia.