Green becomes the new Red in Germany

The Greens of the original West Germany 1979 and the East German Alliance 90 founded during the 1989–1990 Revolution have been very radical alternative political trailblazers globally in all things ecological and environmental since the 1980s, a governing opposition political movement made up of regular everyday folk just frustrated by mainstream elitist politics, historically the first Green members of the Bundestag entered in 1983 led by the sneaker without a suit and tie wearing Joschka Fischer sworn in as environment minister in the Social Democratic state government of Hesse in 1985 to 1987 where he would eventually rise from Frankfurt am Main to go to Berlin to enter the SDP cabinet of Chancellor Gerhard Schroder from 1998 to 2005 serving as Foreign Minister and as Vice Chancellor of Germany for the Socialists, more than an actual political protest party it views itself as an antiestablishment activist agenda via a grassroots democratic movement for issues long ignored as unimportant by elitist politicians such as electoral representation like proportional representation and against things like American nuclear warhead missiles and the global nuclear arms race of the superpowers as Neunundneunzig Luftballons that Nena of Neue Deutsche Welle fame had warned us about in 1984 from the peaceful human chain protests in the Hofgarten public gardens of Bonn towards a blue sky and over the Berlin Wall at the height of the Cold War.

Such a brand new expressive political era with such wild rebel youth style quickly attracted older veteran radicals from the 1968 European student protest movement, admirers of a punk subculture whose conditions were created by a status quo combination of East German Communism and West German Christian Democracy which had been subverted by Baader Meinhof Group via the Red Army Faction crisis of 1977 for short awhile, not until it would hit its height with the fall of the Wall in Autumn 1989 could the Green movement in Germany would they its people finally gain recognition as more than just an unconventional movement but a truly grassroots citizenry as Green becomes the new Red in Germany.

Coalition government and those key issues mainstreaming across the political spectrum soon brought the Greens into working along with the conservative Christian Democrats as Schroder slowly turned into a wind power friendly former environment minister Angela Merkel, by 2011 both climate change and the Fukushima nuclear disaster would create an outspoken opponent of nuclear energy and carbon free electricity enemy of the CDU, so naturally that year the Greens got its first state majority coalition government winning 24.1% and 36 seats with traditionally conservative voters in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg with Winfried Kretschmann in Stuttgart. This event kickstarted the slow takeover of conservatism with hopes of forming a grand coalition government with traditionally conservative CDU and the classically liberal FDP, those were quickly dashed after the 2017 federal general election as irreconcilable differences led to a fourth place finish with the resignation of three party leaders within its movement, leaving first generation socialists aged as former jobless dropout hippies to become well educated high earning urbanite professionals with a strong religious belief in the consensus held benefits of multiculturalism to see their political values change to and thus have left the union and labour friendly SDP for the refugee and immigration friendly Greens. Both state election victories Bavarian 17.6% and 38 seats in Munich and Hessian 19.8% and 29 seats in Frankfurt am Main in mid to late October for the Greens have witnessed the second place steady replacement of red socialism with green environmentalism which perhaps is yet another Wind of Change just as the Scorpions sang is the same old song being sung by those seeking another choice as yet another decade soon turns.