Curriculum Vitae
Josef Göppel
Josef Göppel was born on 16 August 1950 on a small farm in the Franconian village of Rauenzell near Ansbach. He grew up with a strong attachment to the land and became a forester. He worked as a forestry engineer for 28 years – mostly outdoors. Göppel is married and has four daughters.
In 1972, he became involved in the local politics of his home region. After eight years in the Bavarian State Parliament, he was elected directly to the German Bundestag in 2002. All his political activities focus on living and working in harmony with nature.
Göppel has been the head of the CSU’s environmental working group since 1991, and has played a significant role in shaping the party’s environmental platform. Within the party, he has a reputation as a sometimes difficult and persistent unconventional thinker. The media regard him as the green conscience of his party.
As a forestry engineer, in 1986 he founded the Land Care Association of Middle Franconia. His aim was to overcome the bitter divisions that existed at that time between environmentalists and farmers. The initiative became a success, and today there are 155 Land Care Associations in 14 German Länder, with equal representation of farmers, conservationists and local politicians. Göppel has been head of the German Association for Landcare since 1993. The network Landcare Europe was founded at EU level in 2016.
In the mid-90s he joined the International Eco-Social Forum and worked on the Global Marshall Plan Initiative.
In 2005 he founded the Renewable Energies Network in the Middle Franconia region together with business representatives, craftspeople and scientists. In 2014 this led to the creation of the Franconia Regional Electricity cooperative, which aims to sell electricity directly to those in the immediate vicinity of the production sites.
He stood firmly by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2015, when her generous policy of receiving Syrian refugees came under harsh criticism from the CDU and CSU.
A key cross-party initiative in the German Bundestag can be traced back to Göppel: members of government and opposition parties joined forces in the Future Forum on the Environment, where they made the case for more sustainable environmental policies.
In the Bundestag elections, Göppel’s personal votes have far surpassed the second votes for his party every time; in 2013, the figures stood at 53.3 percent to 47.6 percent.
An outsider’s view proves revealing – the following text appeared in the local press after an appearance at the Nürnberger Presseclub:
"Göppel is a true conservative. He wants nothing more than to preserve creation. The CSU Member of the Bundestag approaches politics through the lenses of his Christian faith and his long experience working with nature. He has been known to get on the wrong side of people, whether it be his fellow party members or supporters of conventional growth policies. He was the only member of the CSU to vote against generating electricity from nuclear power in Germany long before the start of the energy transition."
Political Career
•1972-2004 Herrieden town council
•1974-1994 Middle Franconia District Council
•since 1991 Chairman of the CSU environmental working group
•1986 founded the first Land Care Association
•1994-2002 Bavarian State Parliament
•since 1996 Ansbach county council
•since 2002 German Bundestag
Them's the brakes: German drivers face new speed limits
Christian Science Monitor (USA) from the July 20, 2004 edition
By Andreas Tzortzis | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
THE AUTOBAHN, SOMEWHERE BETWEEN BERLIN AND WEIMAR - At 124 m.p.h., Kay Herschelmann is passing cars as if they were potted plants on roadside windowsills.
In the right lane, a Mercedes sedan becomes his latest conquest.
"He could catch up to me if he wanted to," says Mr. Herschelmann, calmly gripping the steering wheel of his Saab station wagon.
He maneuvers behind a car that just a few seconds ago was far away. The Saab's bumper nearly kisses the other car's license plate, before the slower vehicle wisely changes lanes. The speedometer ticks upward.
Ask Germans what freedom is, and they are likely to tell you about letting a 200-horsepower engine eat up autobahn pavement. In a country that diligently separates its garbage, where pedestrians actually obey crosswalk signals, and where daily life is dictated by countless rules and regulations, the autobahn offers Germans a precious ribbon of freedom.
Though most of its neighboring countries have self-imposed speed limits, lead-footed Germans have so far resisted calls by the European Union (EU) to slow down.
But their speedracing days may be numbered.
Experts estimate that in the next few years, the EU will impose a standard speed limit on all European highways, including the autobahn.
German politicians could beat them to it.
Growing concerns about safety and the environment combined with high gas prices has led to calls in recent weeks from across the political spectrum for a speed limit. "We have to ask ourselves what price we pay to live out this feeling of freedom," says Josef Goeppel, a parliamentarian for the conservative Christian Social Union.
For decades, Germany's Green Party was virtually alone in arguing that a speed limit would limit both CO2 emissions and fuel consumption. The fact that conservative politicians like Mr. Goeppel have jumped on the bandwagon signals serious intent.
"I don't think a speed limit will solve all problems, but it is an important measure, especially regarding the environment," says Goeppel. "The alternative is to make gas more expensive."
A recent poll shows that, for the first time, politicians could have the backing of the populace, about 52 percent of whom were in favor of a speed limit, while 45 percent were against it. "That was different a few years ago," says Goeppel.
The autobahn, the first stretches of which were built in 1929, holds a special place in German society. The structure of it has changed little since Hitler expanded the highway system in the 1930s to speed the delivery of military supplies across the country.
As the country rose from the ashes of WWII, it was the well-built, carefully maintained autobahn that sped along the West German economic miracle. And the right to drive as fast as one pleases on certain stretches became sacrosanct.
But a number of factors, not the least of which is the aging of the German population, has contributed to a gradual change in opinion. Germany's central location - in a European Union that has expanded to include eight former Eastern bloc countries - has contributed to clogging the autobahn with semi-trucks delivering goods across the EU.
The sometimes deadly combination of creeping semis and speeding cars on highways that are often only two lanes in each direction has already led to speed caps on some stretches of the autobahn, with positive results. An 80 m.p.h. limit on the autobahn between Berlin and Hamburg reduced annual traffic-related deaths from eight to zero last year, reports Rainer Hillgaertner of the Automobilclub Europa, one of Germany's biggest organizations for drivers.
The safety argument was supported by a high-profile case involving Rolf Fischer, a Mercedes test driver who was sentenced in February to 18 months in prison for reckless driving on the autobahn that resulted in the death of a young mother and her child. The ensuing media storm increased awareness of autobahn dangers, but critics of speed limits remain stubborn.
"Those are sad, isolated stories but those are not the norm on our streets," says Maximillian Maurer of the car-driver organization ADAC, one of the more powerful car-lobby organizations in Germany. He points to Europe-wide statistics that show Germany below other countries in the number of traffic-related deaths.
Enough measures have already been taken to ease the stress on drivers, says Maurer. Roughly 40 percent of the autobahn now has speed limits. Electronic signs in some of the unregulated stretches "suggest" speeds based on traffic and the time of day.
That leaves about 4,970 miles open for speedsters. And they want it kept that way.
"Why would you want to regulate something that isn't important," says Herschelmann. "If there's space and room, why put a speed limit on it?"