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Young and involved

No matter whether in parties, in parliament or at demonstrations, hundreds of thousands of young people are politically active in Germany.

05.07.2023
Fridays for Future demonstration in Berlin with Greta Thunberg
Fridays for Future demonstration in Berlin with Greta Thunberg © picture alliance

Hundreds of thousands of young people are politically involved in Germany in many different ways. Some of them join one of the parties or are even members of the Bundestag. Others are active outside the parliaments, for instance in the climate protection movement Fridays for Future. Here you can discover how diverse their involvement is.

Young politicians in the Bundestag

Youngest MP in the Bundestag: Emilia Fester
Youngest MP in the Bundestag: Emilia Fester © picture alliance/dpa

Members of the German Bundestag have reached a lower average age since the federal elections of September 2021. At present 50 of the 736 Members of Parliament are under 30 years of age. The youngest members belong to the Greens: Emilia Fester and Niklas Wagener joined the Bundestag in October 2021 at the age of 23.

Youth branches of political parties

All of the parties represented in the Bundestag have youth organizations. The largest is the Junge Union which is linked with the CDU and CSU. It says it is the “largest political youth organization in Europe” with 90.000 members. The young socialists or Jusos of the SPD have more than 70,000 members. The young greens or Grüne Jugend have around 16,000 active members, while the young liberals (Junge Liberalen) total around 16,000. In most of the youth organizations the age limits range between 14 and 35 years. Many politicians who now have leading positions began their political careers in one of the youth organizations. For instance, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz was federal deputy chairman of the Jusos.

Active outside political parties

Many young people are politically active without belonging to a political party. In Germany they have been involved in the Fridays for Future movement since 2019 in order to put pressure on politicians with methods such as climate strikes.

But young people have long since been fighting not just for greater climate protection. There are also youth groups in human rights organizations such as Amnesty International. There are also active young members in the trade unions. The youth section of the Federation of German Trade Unions (DGB) has around 500,000 young members aged up to 27 years. They are actively involved in standing up for the interests of young people no matter whether they are internees, trainees or young employees.

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