Editing Joschka Fischer (section)

==Early life==
Joseph Martin Fischer was born in [[Gerabronn]] in [[Württemberg-Baden]], 12 April 1948. He was the third child of a butcher, whose family had lived in [[Budakeszi]], [[Kingdom of Hungary|Hungary]], for several generations. Fischer's family had to leave Hungary in 1946 after it was occupied by the [[Soviet Union]], and [[Germans of Hungary|ethnic Germans]] were persecuted and expelled by the authorities. His nickname ''Joschka'' is derived from the Hungarian ''Jóska'', diminutive of Joseph (Hungarian ''József''). He was brought up Catholic and served in his childhood as an altar boy in his parish in [[Oeffingen]].<ref>{{cite news|author=M. Drobinski |url=http://www.sueddeutsche.de/leben/prominente-ministranten-vor-dem-altar-gestaehlt-fuers-leben-1.985487|title=Vor dem Altar gestählt fürs Leben }}</ref> Fischer dropped out of high school in 1965, and started an apprenticeship as a photographer, which he quit in 1966. Because Fischer never gained a school-leaving certificate, he never attended a university or a college. He neither did compulsory military service nor the alternative civilian service for conscientious objectors, because he failed his physical examination due to poor eyesight.<ref>{{cite news|author=Christoph Schult |url=http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,128137,00.html |title=Zivildienst: Hat sich Joschka Fischer gedrückt? |work=[[Spiegel Online]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061116065904/http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0%2C1518%2C128137%2C00.html |archive-date=16 November 2006 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In 1967, he became active in the [[German student movement]] and [[Left-wing politics|left-wing]] movement (post-) 1968 (the so-called ''[[Spontis]]''), first in [[Stuttgart]] and after 1968 in [[Frankfurt am Main]]. For his regular income, Fischer took several low-wage jobs, such as working in a left-wing bookstore in Frankfurt. During this period, he began attending university events, including lectures organized by left-wing revolutionary students by [[Theodor W. Adorno]], [[Jürgen Habermas]] and [[Oskar Negt]].<ref>Paul Hockenhos, ''Joschka Fischer and the Making of the Berlin Republic,'' Oxford University Press, 2007, p 86</ref> He studied the works of [[Karl Marx|Marx]], [[Mao Zedong|Mao]] and [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]] and became a member of the militant group, ''Revolutionärer Kampf'' (Revolutionary Struggle). Fischer was a leader in several street battles involving the radical ''[[Putzgruppe]]'' (literally "cleaning squad", with the first syllable being an [[acronym]] for ''Proletarische Union für Terror und Zerstörung'', "Proletarian Union for Terror and Destruction"), which attacked a number of police officers. Photos of one such brawl in March 1973, which were later to haunt Fischer, show him clubbing policeman Rainer Marx,<ref name=NYT_Firebrand>{{cite news|last=Cohen|first=Roger|title=Germany's Foreign Minister Is Pursued by His Early Firebrand Self|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00EEDD123DF936A25752C0A9679C8B63|date=15 January 2001|newspaper=New York Times|access-date=24 April 2008}}</ref> to whom he later publicly apologized.

Fischer is a close friend of [[Daniel Cohn-Bendit]], whom he met during that time. In 1969, Fischer was photographed in Algeria at a meeting of the PLO,<ref>{{cite news|access-date=22 November 2023|author1=Susanne Beyer|author2=Max Hoppenstedt|author3=Timo Lehmann|author4=Dialika Neufeld|author5=Jan Petter|author6=Tobias Rapp|date=17 November 2023|language=en|quote=Joschka Fischer [...] During his time as German foreign minister, he even had to explain a photo showing him at a meeting of the PLO in Algiers in 1969|title=Has Greta Thunberg Betrayed the Climate Movement?|url=https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-potential-rift-in-the-climate-movement-what-s-next-for-greta-thunberg-a-2491673f-2d42-4e2c-bbd7-bab53432b687|work=[[Der Spiegel]]}}<!-- auto-translated by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> which remained a terrorist organization until 1988.  In 1971, he began working for the car manufacturer [[Opel]] and attempted to organise his fellow workers for the coming communist revolution. (This was not organising on behalf of a regular labour union: the vast majority of Opel's workers had already been organised for decades by [[IG Metall]], the German metalworkers' union.) This resulted in his dismissal from the company after six months. Fischer then continued making a living with unskilled work while continuing his activism. He worked as a taxi driver from 1976 to 1981 and later in a bookstore in Frankfurt.

In the ''Deutscher Herbst'' ([[German autumn]]) of 1977, Germany was rattled by a series of left-wing [[terrorism|terrorist]] attacks by the [[Red Army Faction]] (RAF) and [[Revolutionary Cells (RZ)]]. According to Fischer's own account, witnessing these events, particularly the kidnapping and murder of [[Hanns-Martin Schleyer]] and the [[Operation Entebbe|Entebbe hijacking]],<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/books/review/27hari.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1|newspaper=The New York Times|title=The Red and the Green|first=Johann|last=Hari|date=27 November 2005|access-date=7 May 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Kelly |first=Michael |date=14 February 200 |url=http://www.postwritersgroup.com/archives/kell0211.htm |title=Who is Joschka Fischer? |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110525141300/http://www.postwritersgroup.com/archives/kell0211.htm |archive-date=25 May 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref> made him renounce violence as a means for political change. Instead, he became involved in the [[new social movements]] and later in the newly founded [[Alliance 90/The Greens|Green Party]], mainly in the state of [[Hesse]].

In May 1981, the Hessian Secretary of Commerce [[Heinz-Herbert Karry]] was murdered with a firearm that in 1973 had been transported in Fischer's car, along with other weapons stolen from an American army base.<ref>{{cite news |last=Karacs |first=Imre |date=3 August 1998 |title=Kohl turns his fire on the Greens |newspaper=[[The Independent]] |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/kohl-turns-his-fire-on-the-greens-1169537.html |access-date=1 July 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110525141300/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/kohl-turns-his-fire-on-the-greens-1169537.html |archive-date=25 May 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Fischer maintained he had given the car to the later terrorist [[Hans-Joachim Klein]] solely for the purpose of having Klein fit it with a new engine. Only later had Fischer learned that his car had been used to transport stolen weapons.{{citation needed|date=May 2011}}

As Foreign Minister, Fischer apologised for the violence of his ''Putzgruppe'' days, without disassociating himself from the radical movement. Some critics continue to charge that Fischer was the leading figure of a 1976 discussion that led to the use of [[Molotov cocktail]]s in an upcoming demonstration in support of RAF member [[Ulrike Meinhof]]. Fischer was arrested on 14 May 1976 as a suspect in the Molotov cocktail attacks on police, but was released after two days. Fischer stated that he never used Molotov cocktails against the police. The firebombing of policeman [[Jürgen Weber]]'s police car left Weber with burns over 60% of his body.<ref name=NYT_Firebrand/>