Joschka Fischer was elected to the German Bundestag in 1983, and therefore held one of the first Green Party seats in the governing body. In 1985, he became the Minister for the Environment and Energy in Hesse, becoming the first Green Party politician to hold government office. Under the state of Hesse's Premier Hans Eichel, Fischer began a second term as Minister for the Environment in 1991.

In October 1994, Fischer left Hesse to go back to federal politics as party co-chair in the Bundestag for the Bündnis 90/Green Party. After the SPD and Green Party won the national elections in 1998, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder named Fischer as Foreign Minister and Vice-Chancellor to the cabinet.

After the end of the SPD-Green coalition government in 2005, Joschka Fischer accepted a post as a visiting professor for international economic policy at Princeton University. In 2007, he founded the Joschka Fischer Consulting company. He is a founding member and board co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Joschka Fischer has been recognized with many honors and awards, including honorary doctorates from the Universities of Haifa and Tel Aviv. In 2004, he received the Gottlieb Duttweiler Prize and in 2005 the Leo Baeck Prize for his efforts in the Middle East conflict as a mediator between Palestinians and Israelis.