The SPD is in the deepest crisis of its more than 150-year history. The mother party of social democracy in Germany, which has given us the welfare state and our liberal, democratic consensus, is experiencing increasingly devastating defeats in elections. The once proud left people's party has become a splinter party. Journalist Holger Fuss describes a party that is torn between utopia and pragmatism, between the dream of democratic socialism and opportunism in the face of global turbo-capitalism. A party that outwardly promotes social cohesion and solidarity, but is internally alarmingly often characterized by intrigue, envy, and defamation. Fuss has researched within the SPD and spoken with comrades who are despairing of their own party. Social democrats who long for a sense of renewal and charismatic leadership. The result is a unique insight into the engine room of a sinking ship. The author also asks about the prospects for a new social democracy, for a strong SPD. Holger Fuss is an original storyteller. His study of the SPD's struggles clarifies, as intelligently as it is expressively, what ails social democracy. Jacques Schuster, chief commentator of Welt and Welt am Sonntag.