Johannes Kahrs (; born 15 September 1963) is a former German politician of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

(SPD) who served as a member of the German parliament,

Deutscher Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Common ...

, from 1998 until 2020.

Early life and education

Kahrs was born in

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

. His parents are Wolfgang and Bringfriede Kahrs who were both senators in Bremen on the ticket of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. After visiting school in Bremen, Kahrs joined the Bundeswehr and became an officer. Later, he began to study German jurisprudence. During his university studies, Kahrs became a member of ''

Wingolf Wingolf () is an umbrella organisation of 35 student fraternities at 34 universities in Germany, Austria and Estonia. It has approximately 5,000 members. It is one of the oldest oecumenical organisations in Germany. It has a close friendship with t ...

s'', a student fraternity, in Hamburg and was speaker of the organization from 1990 to 1992. After he finished university, Kahrs worked for the state-owned housing company ''Siedlungs-Aktiengesellschaft Altona'' (SAGA). Kahrs is openly gay.

Political career

Kahrs became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1982. He first worked for the Young Socialists in the SPD (''Jusos''). In 1992 Kahrs stood before trial because of the imputation of harassment against a female political rival in the "Jusos". He was sentenced to pay a penalty of 800 euros. In the 1998 elections, Kahrs was first elected to the Bundestag, representing the Hamburg-Mitte constituency. During his first term between 1998 and 2002, Kahrs served on the Defence Committee. Since 2002, he has been a member of the Budget Committee and the Audit Committee. In addition, he joined the parliament's Council of Elders in 2002, which – among other duties – determines daily legislative agenda items and assigns committee chairpersons based on party representation. From 2018 until 2020, he chaired the so-called Confidential Committee (''Vertrauensgremium'') of the Budget Committee, which provides budgetary supervision for Germany's three intelligence services, BND,

BfV BFV may refer to: * Baden Football Association, the ''Badischer Fussball-Verband'', a regional football association in Germany * Bavarian Football Association, the ''Bayerischer Fussball-Verband'', a regional football association in Germany * Berli ...

and MAD.

In addition to his committee assignments, Kahrs served as member of the German-Turkish Parliamentary Friendship Group, first as deputy chairman (2003–2011) and then as chairman (2011–2013). From 2014, he was also a deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Relations with the States of the Southern Caucasus ( Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia). Within his parliamentary group, Kahrs led the Bundestag group of SPD parliamentarians from Hamburg from 2009. In this capacity, he was part of the parliamentary group's leadership under its successive chairs Thomas Oppermann (2013–2017), Andrea Nahles (2017–2019), and Rolf Mützenich (2019–2020). He was also the speaker of the Seeheim Circle. In the negotiations to form a ''

Grand Coalition A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political parties of opposing political ideologies unite in a coalition government. The term is most commonly used in countries where there are t ...

'' of

Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats ( CDU together with the Bavarian

CSU CSU may refer to: * Channel service unit, a Wide area network equivalent of a network interface card * Chari Aviation Services, Chad, by ICAO airline code * Christian Social Union (UK), an Anglican social gospel organisation * Christian Social Un ...

) and the SPD following the 2013 German elections, Kahrs was part of the SPD delegation in the working group on banking regulation and the Eurozone, led by

Herbert Reul Herbert Reul (born, 31 August 1952) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as State Minister for Internal Affairs in the government of successive Ministers-President Armin Laschet (2017–2021) and He ...

and Martin Schulz. In 2015, Kahrs served on the supervisory board of the Bewerbungsgesellschaft Olympia 2024 GmbH, the agency in charge of Hamburg's unsuccessful bid for the

2024 Summer Olympics The 2024 Summer Olympics (french: Jeux olympiques d'été de 2024), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad (french: Jeux de la XXXIIIe Olympiade, links=no) and also known as Paris 2024, is an upcoming international multi-sport event that is s ...

. Kahrs resigned from his mandate and all political positions on 5 May 2020.

Other activities

Corporate boards

* KfW, Member of the Board of Supervisory Directors

Non-profit organizations

* Business Forum of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Member of the Political Advisory Board (since 2018) * Helmut Schmidt Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees (since 2017) *

Friedrich Ebert Foundation The Friedrich Ebert Foundation (''German: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V.; Abbreviation: FES'') is a German political party foundation associated with, but independent from, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Established in 1925 as the ...

(FES), Member * Rebuild and Relief International (RRI), Member of the Supervisory Board * German Association for Defense Technology (DWT), Member of the Presidium * Association of the German Army (FKH), Member of the Presidium * German Military Reserve Association, Member * German-Azerbaijani Forum, Member of the Board of Trustees * Tarabya Academy, Member of the Advisory Board * Otto von Bismarck Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees * Haus Rissen, Member of the Board of Trustees * Jewish Museum Berlin, Alternate Member of the Board of Trustees * Jugend gegen AIDS, Member of the Advisory Board * Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany (LSVD), Member * German National Committee for Monument Preservation (DNK), Member *

Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold The (, ''"Black, Red, ndGold Banner of the Reich"'') was an organization in Germany during the Weimar Republic, formed by members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the German Centre Party, and the (liberal) German Democratic Par ...

, Member * FC St. Pauli, Member * German United Services Trade Union (ver.di), Member * Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees (2011–2019)

Political positions

Kahrs is a proponent of an accession of Turkey to the European Union.

Controversy

In 1992, Kahrs had a power struggle with Juso member Silke Dose in which he threatened her by calling her phone anonymously at nights. He was identified by a trap installed by the police and was asked to resign from all posts by 50 members of his party but stayed on after paying a fine. He is known for receiving substantial political donations from the arms industry and for being the center of a political network in Hamburg politics which has allegedly used its power to hinder and promote careers in a way that many journalists have called inappropriate.

References

External links