Bodo Ramelow | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Ramelow in 2024 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Vice President of the Bundestag (on proposal of The Left-faction) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Assumed office 25 March 2025 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| President | Julia Klöckner | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Petra Pau | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minister-President of Thuringia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 4 March 2020 – 12 December 2024 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy | Wolfgang Tiefensee Georg Maier | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Thomas Kemmerich | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Mario Voigt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 5 December 2014 – 5 February 2020 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy | Heike Taubert | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Christine Lieberknecht | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Thomas Kemmerich | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| President of theBundesrat | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 1 November 2021 – 31 October 2022 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| First Vice President | Reiner Haseloff | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Reiner Haseloff | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Peter Tschentscher | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leader ofThe Left in theLandtag of Thuringia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 3 November 2009 – 5 December 2014 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Dieter Hausold | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Susanne Hennig-Wellsow | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leader of the Party of Democratic Socialism in theLandtag of Thuringia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 14 November 2001 – 17 October 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Gabi Zimmer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Dieter Hausold | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1956-02-16)16 February 1956 (age 69) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Political party | The Left(since 2007) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other political affiliations | Party of Democratic Socialism(1999–2007) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Children | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Residence(s) | Erfurt andSaalburg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Website | bodo-ramelow | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Bodo Ramelow (German pronunciation:[ˈboːdoˈʁaməlo]; born 16 February 1956) is a German politician who has been serving as aMember of theBundestag, representingThe Left. He has been itsVice President as of March 2025. He served asMinister-President of Thuringia from December 2014 to 5 February 2020 and from 4 March 2020 to December 2024.
He was the firsthead of a German state government to serve non-consecutive terms in office sinceEberhard Diepgen, who served twice asGoverning Mayor of Berlin (1984–1989 and 1991–2001). A member ofThe Left, he previously chaired the party's group in theLandtag of Thuringia. On 8 October 2021, he was elected to a one-year term asPresident of the Bundesrat. His term lasted from 1 November 2021 until 31 October 2022.
Ramelow was born and raised inWest Germany. He is a trained retail salesman and became an official inGewerkschaft Handel, Banken und Versicherungen (HBV), the union for trade, bank and insurance employees during the 1980s. He moved toThuringia, in formerEast Germany, after the unification of Germany in 1990. In 1999, he joined theParty of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and was elected to theLandtag of Thuringia.[1] He became deputy chairman and in 2001 chairman of the party's parliamentary group in the Landtag (state parliament).
In February 2004, Ramelow was elected top candidate of the PDS in theThuringian state elections. In June 2004 the party gained its best result in Thuringia sinceGerman unification with 26.1% of the votes. Ramelow was re-elected as the PDS chairman in Thuringia.
Ramelow was the PDScampaign manager for the2005 federal election and also contested theBundestag constituencyGera – Jena – Saale-Holzland-Kreis.[1] He narrowly missed the direct mandate by two percentage points, but was elected to a party-list seat.
Starting in June 2005, Ramelow was chief negotiator during unification talks between the PDS andWASG, a unification that resulted in the new partyThe Left. In September 2005 he was elected deputy chairman of The Left in the Bundestag. In theThuringia state election in September 2009 he ledThe Left to become the second biggest party with 27.4% of the votes, making him a competitor for the post of minister president.
Bodo Ramelow said that claiming that Israeli bombs are responsible for dead children in Gaza is “on the way to saying” the Nazi lie that Jews ate children.
In 2003, it became publicly known that Germany's domestic intelligence service, theFederal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz), had been observing Ramelow and had opened a file on him because of his alleged contacts with theGerman Communist Party (DKP) during the 1980s. Supposedly the observation had stopped following Ramelow's entry into the Landtag in 1999, but in May 2006 theAdministrative court ofWeimar decreed that theThuringianVerfassungsschutz had to reveal the file and the stored data. It became known that the federal agency had observed Ramelow for many years. Ramelow sued the authorities, but in 2010 theFederal Administrative Court of Germany ruled that the agency is entitled to observe politicians of the Left Party due to "reasonable suspicion of anti-constitutional activity".[2][3]
This ruling was overturned in 2013 by theFederal Constitutional Court, which decided that the monitoring had been illegal. It stated that monitoring lawmakers may be acceptable, but only in exceptional circumstances, "if there is an indication that a legislator has abused his or her mandate in the fight against the democratic constitutional order, or actively or aggressively fought against that order." The court found no grounds to suspect Ramelow, who is considered one of the more moderate voices within his party.[4] The decision was widely seen as a major victory for Ramelow's party as well.[5]
Followingelections in September 2014, Ramelow was elected by the Landtag asMinister President of Thuringia on 5 December 2014 with the support of theSocial Democratic Party and theGreens, which had joined the Left in a coalition. This vote, which Ramelow won in the second round, marked the first time the Left had won the leadership of any of Germany's states since thereunification of Germany in 1990.[6]
Ramelow's government lost its majority in the2019 state election, though his party moved into first place for the first time in any German state. Government formation was complicated by the fact that The Left and the far-rightAlternative for Germany (AfD) held a majority between them. All major parties had pledged their opposition to working with AfD, while theCDU,FDP, and AfD refused to work with The Left. On 5 February 2020, Ramelow was defeated in the Landtag election for Minister President after AfD voted with the FDP and CDU to elect FDP leaderThomas Kemmerich.[7] Afterit surfaced that Kemmerich may have cooperated with AfD leaderBjörn Höcke to win the election, Ramelow published a tweet with a photo ofAdolf Hitler shaking hands withPaul von Hindenburg during his inauguration as Chancellor alongside a photo of Höcke shaking hands with Kemmerich. The tweet also included a 1930 statement from Hitler about theNazi Party's position askingmaker after the 1929 Thuringian election.[8] On 4 March, Ramelow was again elected as Minister President by the Landtag due to the abstentions of the CDU and FDP. After the vote, he refused to shake the hand of Björn Höcke, leader of the Thuringian AfD.[9]
In February 2020, Ramelow was criticized because a tweet from the year 2012 surfaced where he posted a photograph of the Soviet PremierJoseph Stalin and commented "Comrade Stalin ;-)".[10]
During theCOVID-19 pandemic in Germany, Ramelow became one of Germany's most prominent critics oflockdowns. Under Ramelow, Thuringia was the first state to lift restrictions following the first wave,[11] and Ramelow resisted lockdown measures requested by Angela Merkel during the second wave in late Autumn and the run-up to Christmas.[12] In January 2021, as Thuringia became Germany's worst affected state, Ramelow announced that he regretted this decision and now supported a hard lockdown.[12]
Ramelow was voted out of office following the2024 Thuringian state election, in which the red-red-green minority coalition lost more seats and The Left was overtaken by the AfD as the largest party. He remained acting Minister-President until a new government was formed.[13] Though he was re-elected to the Landtag from theErfurt III constituency, he announced plans to contest theBundestag constituencyErfurt – Weimar – Weimarer Land II in the2025 federal election.[14] In the election he was elected on thefirst vote.[15][16]
He was succeeded as Minister-President in December 2024 byMario Voigt (CDU).
2023 Grand Cross of theOrder of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany[17]
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| Preceded by | President of the Bundesrat 2021–2022 | Succeeded by |
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