Maximilian Oehl

Being the son of a single mother in Germany and finding the chance to spend a year in Ghana when he was 18, Max became aware of social injustices at an early age. The issues of his growing up years were so different from the Ghanaians, yet the root causes seem similar. The rules of the game were set by the most privileged in both regions, and often the underprivileged were unaware of their rights to enter the system.

He decided to study law because he wanted to learn the “language of the system” to be able to change it from the inside. In 2013, while studying law in Cologne, he founded with a group of friends, the first student-organized Refugee Law Clinic (RLC) in Germany – a student-run legal counseling service for migrants and refugees. His motivation was to help refugees access the services and rights they were given but not informed about. This model spread quickly. By 2015, more than 30 RLCs had been established across Germany. He then combined this growing network into a federal association, RLCs Deutschland e.V., of which Max was the founding chairman.

Max became increasingly involved in politics in his role as an advocate for migration policy. In the process, he became aware of the overall context: whether civil society initiatives are impactful depends on the openness and progress-oriented mindset of the respective politician. In most cases, they never translated into concrete legislative action. Because he could not accept this, he decided to get involved in party politics. Shortly after joining the Social Democrats, he became disillusioned with how little room for change and transformation was within the rigid structures of party politics. When he watched a documentary about Brand New Congress in the U.S. in 2019, his scattered ideas came together to form one big movement: Brand New Bundestag.