On Monday (5.5.2025), , the co-chairman of the center-left (SPD) stood in front of dignitaries and journalists in Berlin, who wanted to witness the with the conservatives of the (CDU) and Bavaria’s (CSU). Klingbeil said just a few words to those gathered: “This government must be successful. It must do so with team play, with the courage to make decisions and with more trust in the citizens,” he said, adding that trust comes through action, not through announcements. That was it.
Klingbeil’s very own cabinet picks
Prior to the signing of the coalition treaty, Klingbeil announced the names of the SPD’s picks for the cabinet posts. To many observers, the most astonishing thing about the list of names was who is not on it: not Svenja Schulze, the long-serving minister first for the environment and then for development, Hubertus Heil, the long-serving Minister of Labor, Interior Minister are among the most prominent SPD ministers to leave the cabinet. Only , Minister of Defense, may continue in the new cabinet of likely Chancellor (CDU). All other six ministers are new in their posts. This is what a fresh start looks like.
Klingbeil reportedly came up with this new beginning largely on his own. He is one of two party leaders of the SPD, which garnered only 16% in — a record low. Still, Klingbeil clinched the powerful positions of Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister, while SPD co-chair Saskia Esken ended up empty-handed.
The new strong man of the Social Democrats is 47 years old. And he comes from Lower Saxony, like many leading SPD politicians in recent decades, most notably former Chancellor .
At first glance, Klingbeil’s CV reads like a typical career for a Social Democrat: His father was a soldier, his mother a retail saleswoman. The family lived in Munster, where one of the largest Bundeswehr bases in the whole of Germany is located. Klingbeil completed his A-levels and community service in Hanover, and then opted to do community service rather than military training. He worked at the “Bahnhofsmission,” a charity with an office at all major train stations offering immediate support for people in distress, such as food, clothes, a place to sleep and medical care. During this time, Klingbeil started building his network within the Social Democratic Party. From 2001 to 2003, he worked in Chancellor Schröder’s office.
That time period also marked a turning point in Klingbeil’s political outlook: He happened to be in New York during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which prompted him to abandon his pacifist beliefs and support a strengthening of the Bundeswehr as a means of self-defense. Since then, he has campaigned for an increase in spending on the Bundeswehr, like many SPD politicians on the right wing of the party.
A steady party career all the way to the top
Lars Klingbeil’s academic career resembles that of many social democrats: In 2004, he completed a degree in political science at the University of Hanover, having received a scholarship from the SPD’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation. In 2005, at the age of almost 27, he entered the Lower House of Parliament, the Bundestag, replacing an SPD lawmaker who retired. Klingbeil failed to be reelected in a general election in the same year. Since 2009, however, he has been a permanent member of parliament, took on the position as SPD General Secretary and finally became party co-leader alongside Saskia Esken in December 2021. As such, he was also responsible for the successful election campaigns in 2021 which brought Olaf Scholz to power, and the disastrous one in February 2025.
However, Lars Klingbeil managed to ensure that his party’s disastrous drop into third place — behind the CDU and the far-right (AfD) — was not primarily associated with him. He quickly built up a relationship of trust with the election winner , quietly negotiated the coalition agreement and now begins his career in the new federal government.
“The fact that a vice-chancellor is also finance minister and party chairman is an unusual concentration of power,” political scientist Karl-Rudolf Korte told Focus magazine.
Klingbeil comes across as calm in the face of adversity. He was diagnosed with tongue cancer over ten years ago, but has since recovered well, he recently reported. Klingbeil has been married since 2019 and is the father of an almost one-year-old son. As a young man, he was a guitarist with the rock band “Sleeping Silence,” which has since disbanded.
But Lars Klingbeil’s life will not go on too quietly: One of his tasks will be to present ideas for the use of the €500 billion ($568 bn) special fund that was hastily approved after the election. After all, everyone wants to benefit from this windfall: The 16 federal states and the municipalities want to get their share for the building of roads, railroads, schools, kindergartens and so on. And after years of constant bickering between the previous government partners SPD, the and the neoliberal (FDP), Klingbeil must demonstrate newfound unity with Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has never held a government office before. Klingbeil’s experience and unagitated manner are seen as useful prerequisites.
This article was originally written in German.
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