Kevin Kühnert

Kühnert was born in West Berlin. His father is a tax clerk, and his mother works in a job centre. He was named after the footballer Kevin Keegan.[1] He passed his final exam at the Beethoven-Gymnasium in Lankwitz in 2008, where he also served as pupil's spokesman. He then completed a voluntary social year (German: Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr) in a Berlin-based organization for children and young people.

Kühnert initially worked over three years in a call center, then studying journalism and communication science at the Free University Berlin, but never graduated. In 2016, he enrolled for a degree in political science at the Fernuniversität Hagen, but suspended studies after becoming Juso chairman. In 2014, he began working in the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin, first for Dilek Kolat, then Melanie Kühnemann.

Kühnert joined the SPD in 2005 and chaired the Jusos in Berlin from 2012 to 2015. Since 2015, he acted as deputy Jusos Federal Chairman and was responsible for tax policy, pension policy, structural policy, right-wing extremism, and migration policy, as well as social media work. When Johanna Uekermann did not run as a candidate again, in November 2017, the Juso federal congress in Saarbrücken elected Kühnert as chairman, with 225 of 297 votes.

In terms of local politics, Kühnert is active in the district of Tempelhof-Schöneberg as a member of the district council.

During the campaign for the SPD party member vote on the 2018 coalition agreement of Germany, Kühnert, along with the #NoGroKo (No Grand Coalition) initiative, promoted the No campaign.[2][3] At a SPD national convention in 2019, he was elected as one of the five deputies of the party’s co-chairs Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans, alongside Klara Geywitz, Hubertus Heil, Serpil Midyatli and Anke Rehlinger.[4] He had previously endorsed Esken and Walter-Borjans in their successful bid for the leadership of the party in 2019.[1]

In an August 2020 interview with Der Tagesspiegel Kühnert announced that he would step down as chair of the Jusos, saying that the "time was right" for new leadership in advance of an anticipated federal election in 2021. After resigning from the office early because of his candidacy for the Bundestag, Jessica Rosenthal was elected to succeed him on January 8, 2021, with 207 of 266 votes.[5] On December 16, 2020, he was nominated as a direct candidate in the constituency of Berlin-Tempelhof - Schöneberg in the 2021 federal election.[6]

• Education and Science Workers' Union (GEW), member
• Willy Brandt Center Jerusalem (WBC), member
• German Youth Hostel Association (DJH), member
• Tennis Borussia Berlin, Member of the Supervisory Board (2013–2017)

In an interview with German newspaper Die Zeit in May 2019, Kühnert described himself as being a democratic socialist,[7] promoting the communisation of large firms and the expropriation of owners from companies like BMW and people who own more than one house or apartment. In his opinion, real democratic socialism has never been tried.[8][9][10]

In May 2018, Kühnert was chosen as a "Next Generation Leader" by Time because of the resistance he launched against the grand coalition that nearly managed to topple Chancellor Angela Merkel and led to a national debate about the future of the SPD and the future of German politics in general.[11] In August 2020 he was described as "a rising star on the left" in Germany by The Guardian.[1]

In March 2018, Kühnert came out as gay in an interview with the magazine Siegessäule.[12][13][14][15][16][17]