Favourite SDP Chancellors of Germany

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Including both the Weimar (including Ebert) and the postwar ones. You get three votes.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Müller, Brandt, Schmidt

[America Needs R'hllor]

The non-Weimar ones, I guess.

[Kingpoleon]

Müller, Brandt, and Schmidt. Schroeder is a Putin sympathizer at best.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The non-Weimar ones, I guess.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I ordinarily like German names, but these are all incredibly unremarkable.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Ebert and the other leaders of the Weimar SPD are total scumbags responsible for the murder of thousands of leftists by proto-Nazis.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Brandt was the only good one, honestly.

[Lechasseur]

1. Gerhard Schröder
2. Helmut Schmidt
3. Willy Brandt, I suppose

[mvd10]

Schröder I suppose. But he's a very shady character at best.

[President Johnson]

1. Gerhard Schröder
2. Helmut Schmidt
3. Willy Brandt

Including future SPD-chancellors: myself

[Sumner 1868]

Why was Brandt such a big deal among the European left in the seventies? He doesn't seem to have done anything particularly innovative.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Why was Brandt such a big deal among the European left in the seventies? He doesn't seem to have done anything particularly innovative.

What is it about German history that causes people on Atlas to write spectacularly ignorant posts? Educate yourself, young man.

[Zinneke]

Why was Brandt such a big deal among the European left in the seventies? He doesn't seem to have done anything particularly innovative.

If you want to remember one image of Brandt it's when he kneeled in front of a Holocaust memorial even though he was a member of the German resistance against Nazism. It shows the difference between a politician and a statesman.

Anyway I voted the non-Weimar ones even though Schröder is at the service of Gazprom.

[Sozialliberal]

I really don't understand why some of you have a low opinion of the Weimar-era SPD chancellors. Those were very difficult times, and I think they all tried hard to save the democratic state.

Especially Scheidemann was a steadfast democrat, republican, and a patriot in the best sense of the word. He was right in opposing the Treaty of Versailles, which contributed to the rise of the Nazis.

My personal ranking:
1 Willy Brandt
2 Philipp Scheidemann
3 Helmut Schmidt (if I ignore his often annoying comments on current affairs after his retirement from politics)

Why was Brandt such a big deal among the European left in the seventies? He doesn't seem to have done anything particularly innovative.

If you want to remember one image of Brandt it's when he kneeled in front of a Holocaust memorial even though he was a member of the German resistance against Nazism. It shows the difference between a politician and a statesman.

Anyway I voted the non-Weimar ones even though Schröder is at the service of Gazprom.

Not to forget his détente policy in the Cold War!

Müller, Brandt, and Schmidt. Schroeder is a Putin sympathizer at best.

More than anything else, Schröder is an opportunist.