Katja Hoyer on the decline of the SPD: “The party was last in such a bad state in 1887”

Recently, I was asked in England , where I've lived for a long time, what was going on with the SPD . Many Britons know the party from history classes. There's a course called "Germany 1918–1945," in which the SPD is portrayed as a party that built the Weimar Republic and defended it against the communists, and as a tragic heroine that courageously stood up to the Nazis, only to perish in the process. "And now?" asked the Brit. He'd been reading a lot lately that the party was in free fall.

British politicians are also closely monitoring the SPD's situation. The social democratic Labour Party under Prime Minister Keir Starmer is trying to draw its own lessons. Like the SPD, it is in government, but like the SPD, it is trailing in the polls behind a newer, right-wing party that is outperforming them as the voice of workers: Reform UK is currently leading the polls with 34 percent, well ahead of Labour at 25 percent and the Conservatives at 15 percent.

Labour scout on the move in the East: “SPD is talking past people”

Because many in the Labour Party refuse to accept this, one of its MPs has set out to explore the deep fall of social democracy elsewhere. Labour MP Jake Richards embarked on a "fact-finding trip" through Germany and discovered "uncanny and downright haunting similarities between the plight of the SPD and a future that awaits the Labour Party itself if its government fails to deliver what British voters have been demanding for years."

Richards also traveled to East Germany and observed that the SPD was talking past the people. Former Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) "presented himself as a chancellor focused on greening the economy, on growth and housing construction," he told his colleagues, warning: "Their election results have virtually halved in four years."

Richards believes it's important to robustly address issues like migration, social spending, and crime without being "sent to Siberia" by one's own colleagues. One must respond to the demands of one's own constituents. "People aren't wrong to be concerned about immigration. People aren't wrong to feel that the welfare state is unfair."

The SPD case has become a horror story, told across the English Channel and across language barriers. From my chronological bird's eye view as a historian, the situation looks hardly less grim. The SPD plummeted to 13 percent in a Forsa poll earlier this week. What was described in the media as a "poll low" only becomes clear in all its drama when one looks further back: The last time the SPD fell below this level in an election was in 1887, almost 140 years ago. Back then, it only won ten percent of the vote, but was on the rise. So you could say we currently have the most unpopular SPD of all time.

It's hard to imagine that no one within the SPD itself is aware that this has long since ceased to be about poll ratings, but rather about the very existence of the party. And yet the merry round of self-destruction continues. At the SPD party conference at the end of June, Alexander Schweitzer, the Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate, once again spoke of the "democratic center," referring, without self-irony, to his own party, which is now only supported by a small minority.

Because there's little else the SPD can agree on, the party conference decided not to change its own course or at least begin a period of self-criticism, but to support the preparation of proceedings to ban the AfD. Instead of working on itself, the SPD wants to ban the largest opposition party, which received almost twice as many votes in the Forsa poll with 24 percent. SPD leader Lars Klingbeil sees his "historic task" as fighting the competition legally, not in the self-preservation of Germany's oldest party, for which he was entrusted with responsibility.

Left wing of the SPD party determines policy

According to the current ARD DeutschlandTrend, the top issue for voters remains by far "immigration/refugeeship." This issue remained in the background at the party conference, although delegates insisted on calling for the full restoration of family reunification for those granted subsidiary protection, the suspension of which was recently decided upon by the democratically elected Bundestag.

The zeitgeist has largely moved away from such left-liberal positions. The SPD, the Greens, and the Left now share only slightly more than a third of the electorate. Nevertheless, the party leadership repeatedly gives the left wing of the party the opportunity to dominate debates and policies. This week, for example, saw the nomination of SPD candidate Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf for constitutional court judgeship.

Since judges are supposed to be non-partisan, the CDU/CSU withdrew its original candidate because he seemed too conservative, especially to the Greens. Brosius-Gersdorf, on the other hand, presents herself as more of a left-wing activist than many would like. In the past, she had supported a constitutional requirement to introduce mandatory vaccinations, as well as quotas for women on electoral lists, allowing legal trainees to wear headscarves, and a change to the abortion law because, as stated in a report for which she was responsible, there were "good reasons" to believe that human dignity "only applies to a person from birth." One can hold such positions, but this profile does not sound like that of an independent constitutional judge.

And so, with one decision after another, the SPD is distancing itself from the lives and thoughts of the people of Germany – and doesn't even realize it. Of course, there's room for left-wing activism in the party spectrum, but not in the "center," but rather on the left, where the Greens and The Left already sit. There's always a lot of talk about not "defeating" the AfD by taking up its issues, but doesn't the same apply to the far left? The SPD is no better at left-wing politics than explicitly left-wing parties that emerged to its left.

Katja Hoyer: “If the SPD continues like this, it will destroy itself”

If the SPD continues like this, it will destroy itself. It doesn't matter, you might say. But that shouldn't be the case. When the SPD was still a people's party, it championed the interests of the "ordinary people": decent working conditions and wages, fairer access to educational opportunities, women's rights, and the appreciation of work and achievement, regardless of the professional field. Since 1949, it has offered a socially acceptable and modern counterpoint to the basic conservative consensus of the Federal Republic. That was good for democracy, because the tension between the SPD and the CDU/CSU forced both parties to deliver political performance, exercise reason, and compete for voter favor.

If the SPD gives up on itself—and that's looking very likely at the moment—it will also give up part of the successful model of the post-war German order. This may be more obvious from the outside than from within. Perhaps the SPD should send a few of its own people abroad on a fact-finding mission.