Can yesterday’s man save German liberalism?
At 74, Wolfgang Kubicki is taking over the FDP just as the party faces political extinction. His rise reveals a growing appetite for politicians who feel less scripted — and less modern.
Dear Reader,
Can yesterday’s man be the man of tomorrow?
The expression ein Mann von gestern is used to describe a man, usually of advancing years, whose habits, mannerisms and opinions no longer fit comfortably into the modern world. The phrase carries with it the assumption that history moves in only one direction — and that some people simply fail to keep up.
Yet in several countries in recent years, politicians of this ilk have shown a remarkable ability to tap into a political counter-zeitgeist. Figures dismissed as outdated, ill-mannered or embarrassing are suddenly finding younger admirers. They chain-smoke, drink too much, crack politically incorrect jokes and project an off-the-cuff authenticity that feels exotic in the age of media training and managerialism.
It is the archetype of the well-lubricated uncle at Christmas whom millennials rolled their eyes at, but whom parts of Gen Z — particularly young men — increasingly view with a mixture of irony and admiration.
In Germany, there is perhaps no better embodiment of this archetype than Wolfgang Kubicki.
Largely unknown abroad, Kubicki’s domestic fame far exceeds his formal political importance. He has been an influential figure inside the liberal Free Democratic Party for decades, but only entered frontline politics late in life. His famous explanation for why he avoided Berlin for so long encapsulates his irreverent personality. He would become “a whoremonger” if he moved to the capital, he once insisted, long before incorrigibility was back in fashion.
A prosperous lawyer from Kiel with a fondness for motorboats and long liquid lunches, Kubicki became something of a cult figure among lockdown sceptics during the Covid years due to his relentless lambasting of the anxious health minister and his cheerful admission that he attended illegal lock-ins at his local pub.
Since then, he has become an icon for voters who believe that modern politics spends too much time peering through their front windows. While much of the political establishment sees it as its duty to encourage people to live healthier lives, Kubicki advocates drinking wine at lunch and swears that he would take up smoking if it were ever banned in public spaces.
Always good for a bon mot, he has also published bestselling books with titles such as Straight Talking and Freedom Under Siege, lamenting what he sees as the retreat of liberalism. Alongside Sahra Wagenknecht, he is one of the few active German politicians still capable of selling out speaking tours.
Now, at the age of 74, Kubicki is about to take on the biggest role of his life.
After announcing his candidacy last month, he is set to become leader of the FDP after the only rival candidate withdrew from the race. His ascent comes at a moment of deep crisis for the party.
For most of post-war history, the FDP occupied a stable niche within German politics. Economically liberal and socially permissive, it was able to find common ground with both the centre-left and centre-right. In the stable electoral landscape of late 20th-century Germany, winning between five and ten percent of the vote was often enough to make the party indispensable.
This century, however, the FDP has become increasingly volatile — swinging between historic highs and complete collapse.
In 2021, the party achieved one of its strongest ever results, with its defence of individual liberty resonating among younger voters who had been grounded by the state during the pandemic. Yet only a few years later, many of those same voters had drifted either towards political apathy or to the Alternative for Germany after the FDP became associated with the drift of the Scholz years.
Since crashing out of the Bundestag at last year’s election, the FDP has struggled for political oxygen. The leadership chosen to replace long-time figurehead Christian Lindner lacked charisma, and the party suffered further humiliations in state votes this spring.
After the recent Baden-Württemberg election, Chancellor Friedrich Merz effectively declared the FDP politically dead, encouraging liberal voters to switch to the CDU rather than waste their vote on a party that he claimed had “disappeared from the political stage for good.”
According to Kubicki, it was not the state election defeats themselves that finally pushed him to act, but Merz’s opportunistic obituary. When he announced his intention to take over the leadership, the media started talking about the FDP again for the first time in over a year.
And Kubicki knew exactly how to maximise the attention.
Asked what went through his mind when he heard Merz’s comments, he replied that he thought: “Du Eierarsch, dir werde ich das zeigen!” — roughly: “You egg arse, I’ll show you.”
Crude and bizarre though the insult sounded, it was politically astute. It subtly nodded to a debate over freedom of speech that has increasingly undermined the Chancellor. At youth protests against military conscription, demonstrators have carried signs reading “Merz leck Eier” (“Merz lick balls”) — with some protesters detained under Germany’s controversial laws against insulting holders of public office.
A free speech purist, Kubicki has long called for such laws to be abolished.
The septuagenarian politician was simultaneously showing that he understood the latest youth meme while also ensuring that his name remained in the headlines for several more days. As he somewhat cynically observed when explaining why he was the right man to lead the FDP: “If people are to listen to you, you have to be well known … lasting public awareness depends on how long you stay in the media.”
Kubicki is a taboo-breaker in other ways too. More openly than almost any mainstream politician, he has questioned Germany’s rigid political quarantine around the AfD. He recently declared that he “knows no Brandmauer”, insisting he would not block legislation merely because the AfD might support it — a position that remains highly controversial within Germany’s political establishment.
He is also unusually willing to engage with the emerging ecosystem of right-wing alternative media, something that has prompted accusations that he himself has drifted towards populism. When Der Spiegel recently sat down with him, the interviewer objected that he was “doing the work of the enemies of democracy” by claiming that freedom of speech was under attack. The Süddeutsche Zeitung, meanwhile, dismissed Kubicki as a Mann von gestern to whom the FDP had turned only out of desperation.
Sending what we commonly call the “liberal elite” into paroxysms of rage is unlikely to trouble Kubicki in the slightest. He insists that he is the true liberal — and that it is the modern establishment that has drifted away from those values while seeking to present him as a dinosaur. Indeed, as a pro-NATO and pro-EU stalwart, Kubicki has relatively little in common ideologically with modern populism, making some of the attacks on him sound unduly shrill.
Kubicki’s popularity stems not from ideological radicalism, but from style and temperament. In a political culture increasingly dominated by caution, managerial language and moral instruction, he represents something messier and more spontaneous. He says impolite things, appears entirely unembarrassed by himself and gives the impression — whether genuine or carefully cultivated — of speaking before thinking rather than after consulting advisers.
Whether that will be enough to rescue the FDP remains to be seen. The party is polling at just three percent nationwide. But Kubicki’s rise suggests that, in an age when voters increasingly distrust polished professionalism, the “man of yesterday” may no longer look quite so outdated after all.