Robert Habeck arrived in Bayreuth, a small Bavarian town about four hours’ drive from Berlin, in an elegant slate grey suit and a white shirt open at the collar. A charismatic 53-year-old with salt and pepper hair, a stubbled jaw and a warm smile, he spent much of his adult life as a writer of novels and children’s books, only entering politics after becoming frustrated with his local Green party.
His frankness and intelligence — he has a PhD in literary aesthetics but wears it lightly — proved appealing to German voters. Less than a decade after becoming a full-time politician, he’d risen to the top of the Green party and then helped it enter government at the 2021 election. Habeck became Germany’s economy minister and deputy chancellor. He was the second most powerful politician in the country and often ranked by polls as its most popular.
