SPD top candidate Krach: Better to look ahead

The leading candidate of the Berlin SPD has a declared goal: He wants to reclaim the Red Town Hall for the SPD. But the polls aren't exactly encouraging. In addition, there are investigations against him. From Martin Polansky, rbb When SPD top candidate Steffen Krach visits a Berlin school, you can get an idea of the dilemma faced by the Social Democrats, who have co-governed the city as a junior partner of the CDU for the past three years.

Krach is a guest at the Gretel Bergmann School in Berlin-Marzahn. The large community school has a student body, for which headmaster Robert Hüttner sometimes asserts a special need for care. Around 20 percent of young people are missing so often that the management had to report it to the school board. In addition, there are delays and missed individual lessons.

The problems are manifold: there are, among other things, family conflicts or psychological challenges. In the high-rise area on the outskirts of the city, an above-average number of families receive social benefits. Only 60 percent of the teacher-trained teachers Krach attend a 10th grade in the Gretel Bergmann School, where Mr. Heide teaches today.

Mr. Heide, with black horn glasses and white polo shirt, has only recently graduated from high school, he is 19 years old and a third-semester teacher. The school is trying to meet the teacher shortage with just under a dozen students. According to headmaster Hüttner, only 60 percent of the teachers at the school are trained teachers. In addition, he wants significantly more social workers.

Schools, education policy, is one of the few fields in which countries can largely decide for themselves where to go. Although the CDU has been the education senator in Berlin for three years, the SPD has determined the portfolio for 27 years. Krach, a political scientist, was himself once the office manager of the then SPD education senator Sandra Scheeres. "It will not go from one day to the next" For many years, Berlin has mostly ended up in the back of the various educational comparative studies.

And not even SPD candidate Krach, dressed in a bright summer jacket and white sneakers during his school visit, tries to sell Berlin's education policy as a success story. “I definitely wouldn't stand there and say we've done everything right for the last 20 or 25 years. I'm not saying that."However, Krach points out that many schools in Berlin have been fundamentally renovated or reopened in recent years with the so-called school building offensive. The SPD politician speaks of a process.

"This will not happen overnight, it is sometimes frustrating. And the same applies not only to the buildings, but also to the equipment with trained teachers." Experienced, pragmatic and fresh In November last year, Krach was unanimously chosen as the lead candidate by the Berlin SPD at a state party congress. The frequently disputed SPD regional association wanted to put an unspoiled face forward with Krach's choice. Although Krach had gained experience as Berlin's Science State Secretary between 2014 and 2021 and had gained some recognition among insiders, he was not in the front row of his party at the time.

And in 2021, he went back to his native city of Hanover, where he became regional president, a kind of district administrator for the greater Hanover area. Experienced, pragmatic and fresh - that's how Krach tries to convince voters. A typical sentence of his is that he does not want to look back so much, but especially forward. In addition, a lot has been achieved in Berlin: "In the field of science, in the field of culture, we have 500,000 more jobs in the city than 30 years ago." The SPD has widely placarded noise in the city.

For example, with a determined look and the sentence: "The rent madness ends now." The housing shortage and rising rents are one of the central election campaign issues in the capital. Krach promises better protection for tenants through a verifiable rental cadastre and accelerated new construction. He points out that 80,000 new apartments have been built in the last five years, including many social housing. However, the lead candidate also admits that the self-imposed new construction targets of 20,000 apartments per year have not been achieved.

Since 2021, the SPD has been the building senator in Berlin. This is also a dilemma for Krach. When Krach was chosen as the lead candidate last autumn, the Berlin SPD was 13 to 16 percent in the polls. In the ARD pre-election survey by Infratest Dimap on 10.9.2026, the SPD came in at 12 percent, placing fifth among the parties.

The figures for the previous week (02/09/2026) also show that only 19 percent of Berliners are satisfied with the work of the CDU/SPD Senate, and 77 percent are dissatisfied. A difficult starting position for Krach and the SPD to lead the future Senate. In addition, top candidate Krach has been confronted for several days with investigations by the Hanover Public Prosecutor's Office, which have to do with his previous work as regional president in Hanover. According to the investigators, this concerns, among other things, the initial suspicion of the assumption of advantage in two cases.

Krach rejects all accusations. The presumption of innocence applies. In any case, a government majority without the participation of the SPD is unlikely to come about, as neither party wants to enter into an alliance with the AfD. According to the polls, after the election it could be enough for a coalition of the CDU, Greens and SPD as well as for an alliance of the Left, Greens and SPD.

However, Krach is against the expropriation of housing corporations, which the left has declared to be a coalition condition. Since 1989, since the red-green senate of Walter Momper, the SPD has ruled in Berlin - either as a mayor's party or as a junior partner. Steffen Krach and his Social Democrats have the best chance of keeping it that way. No matter how good or bad the party was on the 20th

September.