Heidi Reichenneck a new leader of the Left Party in the German Bundestag. Photo: Jannis Hutt/Wikipedia.
By Victor Grossman – Feb 26, 2025
The winner of the German elections Sunday with the most votes (28.5%), though fewer than in past elections, was the Christian sister team (CDU-CSU) called the “Union.” Its top leader and future chancellor, Friedrich Merz, a former financial lobbyist and board chairman of the American investment giant, BlackRock’s German subsidiary, will head the new government, in which he is expected to pursue a course of militarization and preparation for war as it moves German foreign policy further to the right.
Determined to rebuff any increased possibility of peace arising from the dialing down of the Ukraine War, the CDU plans are for more German tanks, more planes, and more missiles directed at Russia. Short, the majority vote Merz needs in the Bundestag to form a coalition he will enlist the Social Democratic Party to cobble together just enough for a majority. The last time the Social Democrats were in coalition with the Christian parties, they sold out many of their pro-worker positions, contributing heavily to the decline in their popularity.
The neofascist AFD was expected to gain and did gain heavily in the Sunday elections, garnering 20 percent to put it in second place behind the CDU.
The big surprise, however, was the Left Party vote, which catapulted it into the German parliament, where it will have 64 of 630 seats, a bit more than 10 percent of the total. Only a month ago, the party was limping along with 4 percent in the polls, not enough to meet the 5 percent threshold to even get into the Bundestag.
The surprising comeback was powered by young voters, anger at the war budgets pushed by conservatives, and a massive door-to-door operation coupled with a social media campaign. The gains were made even more important since German politicians, including Social Democrats, have been moving to the right, immigrants have come under attack, and the AfD is making historic and dangerous gains.
A recent speech by the 30-year-old Heidi Reichenneck, a newly popular Die Linke leader, went viral on social media and is believed to have helped propel the party’s gains. Speaking angrily to the leadership of the CDU, she decried what she said was their collaboration with neofascists. She challenged the notion that the CDU was serious about opposing fascism. “You just said that no one from your party is reaching out to the AfD,” she declared. “That’s right, they’ve been happily embracing each other for a long time already.”
The CDU’s solution for Germany’s current economic distress includes lower taxes on wealthy corporations and less benefits for the jobless, immigrants, children, and seniors, many of whom face poverty. But billions for a giant armament build-up and preparations for an openly-planned conflict with Russia are all okay.
The Greens, who took some losses Sunday (down to 12%), retain only mild echoes of their radical past; their remaining support on LGBTQ rights, same-sex marriage, abortion, and marijuana may still upset some “anti-woke” blockheads but would otherwise be secondary since they lead the whole ruling pack in heating up war fever with their “ruin Russia” policy. The Greens find increasing comfort with big business interests. But their poor electoral showing gives them too few seats to provide the Christian Parties with a majority.
Another loser was the small Free Democratic Party, which even more overtly plugs the low-tax interests of big business. Its leader, the suave, smartly dressed Christian Lindner was the difficult member of the governing trio of Social Democrats, Greens and Free Democrats that collapsed, necessitating the early elections last Sunday rather than the next ones originally planned for the Fall.
Caused the collapse
Seeing his party glued unchangingly to the losing 4% level, it was he who caused the downfall of the ruling triumvirate, in hopes of joining a new, openly conservative constellation. But his risk misfired; his party stayed below the needed 5% in the vote, and he must now say goodbye to the Bundestag and to politics. The general feeling of “good riddance” was almost audible!
So Merz must turn to the Social Democrats. Their results (16.4%), their worst since 1949 (or since 1887, some have found), do provide just barely enough seats to paste a coalition together. It would undoubtedly not include the party’s present leader until now, the soon ex-Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is largely blamed for the distress of his party and of Germany in general.
Scholz is still occasionally plagued by a revived influence-peddling bank scandal from his early days as mayor of Hamburg. But the reasons for his party to scuttle him are both his immense unpopularity as head of a government which failed and, equally important, his occasional leaning, though hesitant and inconsistent, toward the few courageous leaders among the Social Democrats who are not pushing for long-range missiles for Ukrainian President Zelensky and an insane confrontation with Russia.
Instead, party politics now lean toward gung-ho crusaders like Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who calls for “war.” This makes them eligible as junior partners in a new coalition with Merz & Co. and Pistorius possibly as vice-chancellor.
The frighteningly big vote winner, however, was the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), in second place nationally (20.4%) and winning a solid first place in all five East German states. It builds almost totally on hatred toward immigrants and all ”foreigners.” It also supports Israel’s Netanyahu to the hilt, as an “anti-Muslim.” It calls (but very quietly) for lower taxes and regulations for the big corporations. And it demands conscription and more German dominance in the world.
Its “expel immigrants” pressure has pushed all but the LINKE in the same direction. But it is still too far, far radically rightist to be officially accepted as a partner by the Christians, although the so-called “stonewall” separating them shows increasing signs of crumbling, as has been pointed out by Die Linke leaders. And AfD agrees Germany must build military strength. The ruling German parties all agree that the so-called “defense” buildup must continue ever closer to Russia’s borders with better and faster planes, bombs, and missiles.
Those who like to read about history and perhaps find analogies may have noted that the AfD result on Sunday, 20.8%, was close to double its 9.4% count in the previous election. They also note that the Nazis got only 2.6% in 1928, but reached 18% in 1930 and 37% in July 1932. The giant jumps were clearly a result of the terrible Depression and the threat of worker resistance against the corporations and government. Is the downward-fading German economy now facing a new Depression?
If the wins of the AfD were most alarming, one losing result was truly tragic. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which split away a year ago from what it considered a far too conformist, compromising LINKE, won surprisingly high results in last year’s European election and in three East German states, starkly reducing voters’ support for its former parent party, the LINKE, which soon sank to a dangerously low 4% for the rest of 2024.
But while the BSW maintained its cease-fire/anti-NATO position in the Ukraine war and its total condemnation of Netanyahu’s genocidal massacres in Gaza and now the West Bank, it was no longer seen so clearly as a protest party, partly because it had joined in state governing coalitions in Brandenburg and Thuringia, and because it stuck far too close to the AfD and mainstream parties on anti-immigrant questions it also suffered loss of support from progressives.
Also, it was hurt, no doubt, because Wagenknecht kept membership down to a tiny number, about 1,100. This enabled more control from the top of the party on issues and the selection of candidates.
Applicants for membership must be vetted by the central executive committee, with thousands on the waiting list, and well under 100 members in every state. All these problems added up, plus new negative treatment in the media.
Heart-breaking and close total
For all of these reasons, their vote on Sunday came to a heartbreakingly close 4.972% election result, thus falling below the 5% level needed to enter parliament by only 14,000 votes! Its further existence in the Bundestag was gone; some hostile critics predicted its further existence as well. Some of the leading activists on the left, including those who now lose their Bundestag seats, will soon be out in the cold.
But there was also a second major winner on Sunday, one which caused amazement all over Germany. Seemingly doomed to a similar fate as its breakaway BSW offspring, and after big losses in all 2024 elections and a glue-like, fateful 4% in the polls, Die Linke finally drew conclusions about its reformist character, which had caused it, in its former East German bastions, to really become viewed a part of the establishment.
Late in 2024 it finally returned to vigorous protest. It remained divided on key questions, with some comfortably-seated leaders bowing to government and media pressure, nearing a pro-NATO tolerance and supporting not only Zelensky but even “Israeli “self-defense” slogans. But it decided to steer away from these questions, at least during the elections, adopting a plan to knock on doors of tens of thousands of households and ask those they met what they wished for.
It then focused loudly and vigorously on these major worries: fuel and grocery prices, criminally little affordable housing, and frightening rent increases. With three elder leaders (calling them “The Three Silverlocks”) and charismatic young female leaders in TikTok appeals, they hammered on these subjects, demanded a genuine ban on raising rents, and, alone among the main parties, called for solidarity and clear support for immigrants’ rights. Die Linke then rapidly gained thousands of new members, mostly young, and soared in two months from 4% to an amazing final 8.8%!
The most spectacular success for the LINKE was in Berlin. Down, year for year, to only 6% as late as November, it has soared in this city-state, within three months, to a fantastic first place with 19.9%, ahead of the governing Christians and Social Democrats, the Greens and the AfD!
Overcoming years of decline, it won direct seats for four Bundestag candidates: Pascal Meiser won in Kreuzberg/Friedrichshain with 30%, Ferat Kocak, of Kurdish background, in a former West Berlin district (the first such success for the LINKE), the new, energetic young party chairwoman Ines Schwerdtner won in Lichtenberg with 34.5% and veteran leader Gregor Gysi was re-elected with an almost unbelievable 41.8%!
Die Linke will have much to deal with, however. The coming government headed by Mertz will be even more dangerous than the previous ones in a rapid push towards conflict, even if that means a partial break with the traditional U.S. patrons across the Atlantic.
If it weakens or breaks relations with Trump, it will not be because of his racism and increasing repression, his climate warming plan, or even primarily for his painful tariff plans. These forces now hate him for talking to Putin about ending the fighting in Ukraine, his only good move, for whatever reason. This has enraged them for they do not want a ceasefire or negotiations, they want to earn more billions on weapons, they want to expand, they even want conflict, so they can regain their old-time strength in Europe and spread their euro-heavy wings into Ukraine, Moldova, and beyond. Harkening back to the traditional goal of German war expansionists, they look longingly at those Eurasian expanses, those markets for German goods, the mineral wealth, cheap skilled labor and a powerful geographical position.
Berlin is not Germany but is, after all, its capital and largest metropolis. The victory of Die Linke here, the amazing nationwide 8.8% with its increase to 64 Bundestag seats (out of 630), plus the many thousands of enthusiastic new members, still represent only a very thin slice of the political scene.
But there is now new, strong hope that the LINKE can overcome the influence and the strength of those compromising “reformers,” who still stand for a ruinous status quo and have forgotten the basic goal of the party, a peaceful, non-profit, truly socialist society.
Perhaps some of them may even have been moved by the fresh campaign methods into a new belief in genuine action. And if this can be achieved, this victory can have far-reaching importance well above its numbers, and can possibly help in the resurrection of left-wing opposition not only in Germany but in France, Poland, Britain and all the rest. It is a spark of hope which may comfort, encourage, and even help comrades in other countries.
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Victor Grossman is a journalist from the U.S. now living in Berlin. He fled his U.S. Army post in the 1950s in danger of reprisals for his left-wing activities at Harvard and in Buffalo, New York. He landed in the former German Democratic Republic (Socialist East Germany), studied journalism, founded a Paul Robeson Archive, and became a freelance journalist and author. His latest book, A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee, is about his life in the German Democratic Republic from 1949 – 1990, the tremendous improvements for the people under socialism, the reasons for the fall of socialism, and the importance of today’s struggles.
