Kevin Kühnert, the former general secretary of the SPD, said that before stepping down he often found himself struggling with the job. “The horror has always been the committee marathon” he told “Der Spiegel”. During the weeks when the Bundestag was in session, his calendar filled itself automatically. In the evenings he would ask himself, “What did I actually accomplish today?”
The communication pressure weighed heavily on him. Kühnert described a general secretary as, by nature, a generalist: “In good times that means you’re free to engage with everything. The flip side is that you have to say something about everything”.
He served as general secretary for roughly three years during Olaf Scholz’s traffic‑light coalition (SPD). “The years I held that office were like a picture book that shows how you eventually become a whirlwind of change” Kühnert said. He heard people say he wasn’t “sharp enough anymore” and he agreed. The 36‑year‑old announced his resignation unexpectedly in the fall of 2024.
After a long break, Kühnert has returned in several capacities. He now writes a column for “Rolling Stone”, has been appointed to the pension commission of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), hosts a Berlin talk show called “Missverstehen Sie mich richtig”, and works as a lobbyist for the citizen movement “Finanzwende”, which advocates for a fair tax and financial system. He has not ruled out a return to a political office in the future.