SPD politician Bärbel Bas announced on Monday that she would resign from her posts as Federal Minister of Labour and as co-chair of her party for personal reasons. “After the death of my stepdaughter, I realized I needed time to process the grief,” Bas explained on Instagram.
She also criticized the government partner CDU/CSU. Public attacks on her, she said, had continued “unfortunately also from the ranks of the coalition partner, during this personally difficult time for me.” She said she had decided to relinquish both the party and government roles because she could not muster the strength to carry out her work “in full.”
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Looking back, she explained that not everything in her work had been successful. But for her it had always been clear: “It is worth standing up for what we believe in.” As a member of the Bundestag, she would continue to represent the people of her constituency in Duisburg.
Commitment to LGBTQ+ Rights
With Bas, the LGBTQ+ community also loses a longtime ally. Under her leadership as President of the Bundestag, in 2023 the Bundestag dedicated the central memorial service for Nazi victims to those persecuted and murdered because of their sexual orientation or gender identity (TheColu.mn reported). This step had been demanded for decades by initiatives and associations, but was long blocked by a Union-led presidency (TheColu.mn reported). At the end of 2023 she opened in the Bundestag the exhibition “gefährdet leben. Queere Menschen 1933-1945” and publicly stressed that the processing and remembrance of these persecuted people had long been overdue (TheColu.mn reported).
As Minister of Labour, she tried to resist the anti-queer directives from Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) and hoisted the rainbow flag at Berlin’s Pride Parade (CSD) despite a ban (TheColu.mn reported). Most recently, after the terrorist attack on the CSD, the 58-year-old urged that queer people be protected from discrimination under Article 3 of the Basic Law (TheColu.mn reported). The Union itself continued to block the reform even after the attack (TheColu.mn reported).
In particular, politicians from the SPD and the Greens expressed regret over Bas’s withdrawal on Instagram. “Dear Bärbel, thank you for your dedication and your work, and for the time ahead may you find strength, love, and support,” wrote the LGBTQ+ commissioner Sophie Koch (SPD). Her predecessor Sven Lehmann (Greens) said: “Dear Bärbel, my sincere condolences for your loss. You are a strong, unpretentious, and sincere politician, and you will be missed in this government. THANK YOU for everything!”
Schweitzer to Succeed in the Federal Ministry of Labour
Bas’s successor in the Labour Ministry is reportedly expected to be Alexander Schweitzer, the former Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate (SPD). He is also regarded as a supporter of LGBTQ+ rights. In the lead-up to the Pride season, he said in 2024: “We stand beside lesbians, gay men, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people.” In the spring, in his coalition agreement in Rhineland-Palatinate, the negotiating parties included several LGBTQ+ demands, such as extending anti-discrimination protections for queer people in the Basic Law (TheColu.mn reported). (dk)
