In early 2021 Olaf Scholz’s candidacy as Chancellor left him in a lonely place. He looked to have no chance at all and his party was in decline. Just one year later the three highest offices in the land are held by Social Democrats. How come? Dietmar Süß takes a close look at the strange events of the year and asks what this strange victory means for the future of Social Democracy.

Social Democratic parties across Europe have experienced a huge fall-off in interest from the electorate, and Germany is no exception. Even at the beginning of the year in question, the SPD was seen as obsolete. Have the party’s structural problems vanished? Dietmar Süß recounts the incredible story of election victory and immerses himself in the up-to-date events around the party and the nation. He shows us that while Olaf Scholz and the SPD were doing a lot that was right, it was in the end the weakness of the opposition that put them in office. The state of being in power can mask structural shifts and this was certainly true of both the CDU and the SPD. But Germany’s party system has changed, slowly but surely, as has so much else. The party’s political history described in this book reflects the many and varied shifts in German society.

Dietmar Süß is a Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Augsburg. With C.H.Beck he published in 2017 ‘Die deutsche Gesellschaft im Dritten Reich‘ (German Society in the Third Reich).