Matthias Platzeck

Matthias Platzeck (born 29 December 1953) is a German politician. He was Minister President of Brandenburg from 2002 to 2013 and party chairman of the SPD from November 2005 to April 2006.

Matthias Platzeck
Platzeck in 2009
Leader of the Social Democratic Party
In office 16 November 2005 – 10 April 2006
General Secretary	Hubertus Heil
Preceded by	Franz Müntefering
Succeeded by	Kurt Beck
Minister-President of Brandenburg
In office 26 June 2002 – 28 August 2013
Deputy	Jörg Schönbohm Ulrich Junghanns Johanna Wanka Helmuth Markov
Preceded by	Manfred Stolpe
Succeeded by	Dietmar Woidke
President of the Bundesrat
In office 1 November 2004 – 31 October 2005
First Vice President	Dieter Althaus
Preceded by	Dieter Althaus
Succeeded by	Peter Harry Carstensen
Mayor of Potsdam
In office 4 November 1998 – 26 June 2002
Preceded by	Horst Gramlich
Succeeded by	Jann Jakobs
Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Regional Planning of Brandenburg
In office 22 November 1990 – 3 November 1998
Minister-President	Manfred Stolpe
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Eberhard Henne
Member of the Landtag of Brandenburg for Uckermark I (Potsdam II; 2004–2009) (Alliance 90/The Greens List; 1990–1992)
In office 13 October 2004 – 8 October 2014
Preceded by	Lothar Bisky
Succeeded by	Uwe Schmidt
In office 26 October 1990 – 30 September 1992
Preceded by	Constituency established
Succeeded by	Carmen Kirmes
Wende politically career (1990) Member of the Bundestag for Volkskammer In office 3 October 1990 – 20 December 1990 Preceded by Constituency established Succeeded by Constituency abolished Minister without Portfolio In office 5 February 1990 – 12 April 1990 Chairman of the Council of Ministers Hans Modrow Preceded by Position abolished Succeeded by Position established Member of the Volkskammer for Potsdam In office 5 April 1990 – 2 October 1990 Preceded by Constituency established Succeeded by Constituency abolished
Personal details
Born	(1953-12-29) 29 December 1953 (age 71) Potsdam, East Germany (now Germany)
Political party	Social Democratic Party (1995–)
Other political affiliations	Independent (1993–1995) Alliance 90 (1990–1993) East German Green Party (1990) Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (1989)
Spouses	Ute Bankwitz ​ ​ (m. 1978; div. 1984)​ Jeanette Jesorka ​ (m. 2007)​
Children	3
Residence	Potsdam
Alma mater	Technische Universität Ilmenau
Occupation	Politician Environmental Hygienist
Website	Brandenburgische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung website
Military service
Allegiance	East Germany
Branch/service	National People's Army
Years of service	1972-1974

On 29 July 2013 Platzeck announced his resignation from his office in August for health reasons.

After he left party politics, he became known for his contacts to Russia and, in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine 2014 , he was repeatedly criticized for his Pro-Russian statements.

Early life and education

Platzeck was born in Potsdam, the son of a physician and a medical-technical assistant. After attending Polytechnic Secondary School in Potsdam from 1960 to 1966, he went through Extended Secondary School in Kleinmachnow. Following his Abitur in 1972 and military service he studied biomedical cybernetics at the Technische Universität Ilmenau from 1974 onward. After his diploma in 1979, Platzeck worked at the institute for hygiene in Karl-Marx-Stadt (today Chemnitz) in 1979–1980 and the general hospital in Bad Freienwalde from 1980 to 1982. From 1982 to 1990 he was head of the department for environmental hygiene at the agency for hygiene in Potsdam.

Political career

Platzeck in 1991

Platzeck co-founded ARGUS, a Potsdam environmental organization, with and at the initiative of Carola Stabe in April 1988. In April 1989, he joined the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany but left it shortly thereafter.^[1] He represented ARGUS at the founding of the Grüne Liga association of local environmental organizations in East Germany in November 1989. During the political "Wende" of 1989–1990 that led to German Reunification he was their speaker at the East German Round Table talks.^[2] From February to April 1990 he represented the oppositional radical Green Party as Minister without Portfolio in the last non-elected but legitimate government of the GDR. Platzeck was elected member of the Volkskammer in 1990 for the Green Party and was parliamentary secretary of the joined faction of Greens and Bündnis 90 (Alliance 90).

After German reunification, he was one of 144 members of the Volkskammer co-opted to the Bundestag. He did not run for a full term in the 1990 German federal election.

In October 1990 Platzeck became a member of the Landtag of Brandenburg for Bündnis 90 (Alliance 90). He was Minister for the Environment in a coalition government with the SPD and FDP from 1990 to 1994, when the coalition broke up. Rejecting the merger of his party with the West German Green Party he did not join the new party Bündnis 90/Die Grünen in 1993. Instead, he became a member of the SPD on 6 June 1995.

After the break of the Brandenburg coalition in 1994 Platzeck left his faction and remained Minister for the Environment under Minister-president Manfred Stolpe. He became popular nationwide for organizing public support for the affected population during a flood of the Oder river in 1997. In 1998 he was elected mayor of Brandenburg's capital Potsdam and rejected the offer of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to join the federal cabinet as Minister for Transport.

In 2000 Platzeck was elected chairman of the SPD in Brandenburg and in 2002 he succeeded Manfred Stolpe as Minister-president. He was re-elected to the Landtag (state parliament) in 2004. With the SPD as strongest political force he could continue his coalition with the CDU. He served as President of the Bundesrat in 2004/05.

When Franz Müntefering resigned as party chairman of the SPD because of internal conflicts, Platzeck was elected party chairman on 15 November 2005 with an overwhelming majority of 99.8 percent.^[3] In January, February and April 2006 Platzeck suffered three severe hearing losses. Due to his ill health he resigned from his post as chairman on 10 April 2006, only five months after becoming chairman.

Life after politics

In 2014 Platzeck became chairman of the German-Russian Forum, with some 350 members at the time. In this function he later hosted Vladimir Yakunin and was criticsized for not explicitly objecting Yakunins rants about Ukraine.^[4]

Both in 2015 and 2016, Platzeck and Bodo Ramelow were appointed as unpaid arbitrators for negotiations between Deutsche Bahn and the German Train Drivers' Union (GDL).^[5] In 2016, he also served as unpaid arbitrator for negotiations between German airline Lufthansa and its flight attendants' union.^[6]

From 2018 until 2019, Platzeck co-chaired the German government's so-called coal commission, which is tasked to develop a masterplan before the end of the year on how to phase-out coal and create a new economic perspective for the country's coal-mining regions.^[7]

In 2018, after the Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in England, Platzeck objected the expulsion of Russian diplomats by western nations and doubted the findings of the United Kingdoms security services.^[4] Later that year, he was awarded the Order of Friendship in a ceremony held in the Russian embassy in Berlin.^[4]

In 2019, Platzeck was appointed by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community to chair the committee that oversaw the preparations for the 30th anniversary of German reunification.^[8]

In late 2020, Platzeck was appointed as arbitrator in a conflict between Charité and the United Services Trade Union (ver.di);^[9] negotiations were successfully concluded by February 2021.^[10] Following her election as Governing Mayor of Berlin in September 2021, Franziska Giffey mandated Platzeck with helping to end a six-weeks long strike of Vivantes Hospital Group employees.^[11][12]

Platzeck was nominated by his party as delegate to the Federal Conventions for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2022.^[13]

In addition, Platzeck held a variety of paid and unpaid positions, including the following:

• LEIPA Georg Leinfelder GmbH, chairman of the supervisory board (since 2015)^[14]
• German-Russian Forum, Chairman (2014-2022)^[15]
• Foundation for the Reconstruction of the Garrison Church, member of the board of trustees^[16]
• Internationales Bildungs- und Begegnungswerk (IBB), member of the board of trustees^[17]
• Jewish Film Festival Berlin & Brandenburg (JFBB), member of the advisory board^[18]
• Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), member of the board^[19]
• Schloss Neuhardenberg Foundation, member of the board of trustees^[20]

Political positions and controversy

Platzeck in 2005

Platzeck caused controversy in August 2010 when he called the reunification of Germany on 3 October 1990 an Anschluss, the word used by Adolf Hitler to defend the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938. In response, Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected Platzeck's choice of words and argued that reunification was precisely what east Germans had wanted, not a process forced upon them.^[21]

On 18 November 2014, Platzeck called for the international legitimization of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, drawing criticism.^[22] He has revised his opinion. His comparison (2016) of the deployment of the Bundeswehr to Lithuania as part of the NATO Enhanced Forward Presence with Operation Barbarossa was also criticized.^[23]

Hannes Adomeit criticised in 2020 Platzeck's book about Russia .^[24]

He was listed in a 2022 article by Politico among 12 Germans who got played by Vladimir Putin.^[25]

Citing airline records a July 2025 article by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung claimed that Platzeck since 2022 had traveled to Moscow at least nine times for clandestine negotiations of gas deals with Russia. Citing personal privacy, Platzeck declined to comment.^[26]

Personal life

From 1978 to 1984, Platzeck was married to Ute Bankwitz with whom he has three daughters. In 2007, he married Jeanette Jesorka. The ceremony took place one year later in Temmen-Ringenwalde, with guests including Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Günther Jauch and Andreas Dresen.

Book

• Matthias Platzeck: Zukunft braucht Herkunft. Deutsche Fragen, ostdeutsche Antworten. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-455-50114-8
• Matthias Platzeck: Wir brauchen eine neue Ostpolitik −Russland als Partner. Propyläen Verlag, 2020