After the last elections in three East German Länder (federal states), political observers have to conclude that the established parties there are no longer able to rule by forming coalitions among themselves.
With the right-wing neo-nazi Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) having gained around 30% of votes and the populist Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) having won by far more than 10%, neither the CDU in Thuringia and Saxony, nor the SPD in Brandenburg are able to form governments without the BSW, after having strictly excluded the AfD as a potential coalition partner. As the name of the newly established ‘party’ around Sahra Wagenknecht demonstrates, this is an assembly of former party members of the Linke, the successor of the ruling East German SED, led by a ‘charismatic’ leader.
Wagenknecht’s biography and political career is truly remarkable: the daughter of an Iranian visiting student in West Berlin (who later disappeared after having gone back to Iran) and a mother from Jena (GDR). She grew up in Thuringia, gained an MA from the communist philosopher Hans Heinz Holz (as a student in Marburg/Lahn I personally could witness his public appearances). Later she earned a doctorate in economics.
Living then in East Berlin, she witnessed the collapse of the GDR and called it a “counter revolution” against the ruling socialist regime. Having joined the PDS (the successor of the SED) which later called itself ‘Die Linke’, she quickly became a prominent figure with leading functions in that party. She repeatedly got into conflict with other leading party members, like Gregor Gysi, who tried to distance their party from the GDR’s undemocratic past.
Over the years the conflict escalated and on 23 October 2023 Dr Wagenknecht decided to leave the Linke, taking with her quite a number of Linke party members. On 8 January 2024 she founded her new party, the ‘Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht’ (BSW). In 2011 Wagenknecht had changed her first name Sarah to the Iranian version Sahra, probably in commemoration of her father.
BSW take the popular vote in the East
Within just nine months Wagenknecht’s party managed to severely damage or virtually destroy the Linke in three East German Länder. In Thuringia, ruled by a prime minister from Die Linke, this party lost 18% of votes leaving it with only 13%, whilst BSW won 16% from scratch. In Saxony the BSW gained 12% (15 seats in the Dresden parliament) and brought down Die Linke which won only 4.5% or 6 seats. Finally, on 22 September 2024 the BSW managed to win 14% (14 seats) in the Brandenburg parliament and kick out Die Linke, left with only 3% of votes. What an achievement within just a few months!
This stunning success not only resulted from a widespread frustration among East German voters, but also from Wagenknecht’s numerous television appearances and clever use of the internet. She gained widespread prominence after 25 February 2023 by joining Alice Schwarzer, a prominent feminist, organising a public demonstration in Berlin Aufstand für Frieden (uprising for peace), demanding an immediate armistice, “peace negotiations” between Ukraine and Russia and the stop of Western arms supplies for Ukraine.
Just neglecting the fact that Putin’s Russia was the undisputed aggressor, committing atrocious war crimes, this appeal clearly impressed many ‘peace loving’ Germans, particularly in the new Länder. Having lived for 45 years under Soviet Russian military occupation, quite a number of East Germans somehow identified themselves with the ‘strong man’ and war criminal Putin and put all the blame for the war on NATO and the United States.
Wagenknecht was clever enough to pick up these sentiments and turn them also against Die Linke, which criticised the Russian aggression. Ignoring the undisputable fact that under given circumstances a ceasefire would leave almost 20% of Ukrainian territory in the hands of the aggressor and would not stop any future plans of Putin to ‘restore the Soviet Union’ and possibly create a ‘Eurasia from Vladivostok to Lisbon’. Wagenknecht’s supporters just wanted ‘peace at any price’.
There were suspicions that money for the BSW ‘movement’ had come from Moscow, since the Russian Secret Services were known to actively support ‘dissidents’ in Western countries, particularly Germany. Yet, in late September 2024, a couple from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a rich West German entrepreneur and his wife (Thomas Stanger and Lotte Salingré) announced that they had legally donated €5mn to the BSW, in particular because of Wagenknecht’s ‘peace campaign’. Richness obviously does not prevent stupidity.
Role of Oskar Lafontaine
Wagenknecht’s husband, the 81 years old Oskar Lafontaine, also seems to have played a significant role. A former prime minister of Saarland, SPD member and minister of finance under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Lafontaine left the SPD and joined Die Linke for several years, only to leave that party together with Wagenknecht, who in 2014 had become his fourth wife, to form the BSW. Ironically called the ‘Napoleon of the Saar’, Lafontaine has conducted a truly colourful political life, managing to hurt one party (the SPD), to severely weaken or virtually destroy the second (Die Linke) and now – together with his wife – about to change (or destroy?) the established German party system.
Like other populist leaders Wagenknecht very much cares about her appearance, be it in public election campaigns or on television and the internet. When Donald Trump’s trademark was and still is his orange-coloured face, stylised hair, and long, single-coloured neckties, Wagenknecht always wears a rather old-fashioned, but elegant costume and pins-up her long hair in a specific way.
Cultivating the image of Rosa Luxemburg
To my knowledge, nobody in Germany has talked about Wagenknecht’s stylised appearance which reminds me of pictures of Rosa Luxemburg, the co-founder of the German Communist Party, who was murdered by right-wing troops in Berlin on 15 January 1919. It seems to me that she wants to be seen as a re-incarnation of that communist female leader. Luxemburg was highly admired by GDR communist believers and afterwards by followers of Die Linke. The hidden message should be clear: she also is still a communist believer, carefully disguised as a ‘normal’ German politician.
Both Lafontaine and Wagenknecht are embodiments of narcistic populist leaders, using public dissatisfaction and fears, but also love for peace at any price to promote their grandiose egos. Both the AfD and the BSW, parties from the extreme right and left, demonstrate the appalling weakness of Germany’s centrist political parties.
Populism wins
As numerous historical events tell, times of political and economic crisis can breed populist politicians who manage to gain public support with empty promises. After Trump in the USA, Farage and Johnson in the UK, Le Pen in France and Wilders in the Netherlands, Germany has now found its own populists.
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