Walter Hanel: "Oscar, the Drummer", 1988
© Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Oskar Lafontaine
born 16.9.1943 in Saarlouis
Lafontaine was Mayor of Saarbrücken from 1976 to 1985 and subsequently Prime
Minister of Saarland until 1998. A member of the SPD federal executive since 1979,
the physics graduate failed in his bid to become Chancellor in the 1990 Bundestag
elections. Lafontaine was elected party chairman of the SPD in 1995 and appointed Federal Minister of Finance in 1998. He relinquished both offices and his seat in the
Bundestag in 1999. He returned to politics in 2005 as the top candidate of the new party
“Die Linke” (The Left), winning a seat in the parliamentary elections.
He was elected as one of two chairs of the party’s parliamentary fraction.
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