12 Facts About Wolfgang Tiefensee

Wolfgang Tiefensee was born on 4 January 1955 and is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party.

Wolfgang Tiefensee was the Federal Minister for Transport, Building and Urban Development in the grand coalition cabinet led by Angela Merkel between 2005 and 2009.

Originally an electrical engineer, Tiefensee turned to politics in 1989, during the democratization process of the German Democratic Republic.

Wolfgang Tiefensee became a member of the SPD in 1995.

In 2002, Wolfgang Tiefensee was part of the 15-member commission that developed the so-called Hartz reforms, a set of recommendations to reform the German labour market as part of chancellor Gerhard Schroder's Agenda 2010.

Also during his tenure as Germany's transport minister, Wolfgang Tiefensee announced the little-known architect Francesco Stella as the winner of a competition to find an architectural design for the controversial reconstruction of the Berlin Stadtschloss in 2008.

In 2012, Wolfgang Tiefensee succeeded Garrelt Duin as spokesperson of the SPD parliamentary group on economic affairs.

Wolfgang Tiefensee resigned from his seat in parliament when he became State Minister of Economy, Science and the Digital Society in the government of Thuringia's Minister-President Bodo Ramelow in 2014.

In early 2018, Wolfgang Tiefensee was elected chairman of the SPD in Thuringia, succeeding Andreas Bausewein.

Wolfgang Tiefensee was confirmed in the November 2018 party conference.

In May 2020, Wolfgang Tiefensee announced that he would not stand in the next Thuringian state election but instead resign from active politics by the end of the parliamentary term.

Wolfgang Tiefensee's brother, Eberhard Tiefensee, is a Catholic priest and was professor of theology at the University of Erfurt from 1997 to 2018.