Who is Sahra Wagenknecht?: From rebel to party revolutionary – and back

Hegel, Marx and Stalin as role models

Born in 1969 to a German mother and an Iranian father, Wagenknecht grew up behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, which influenced her political influence. During her philosophy studies she studied Hegel, Marx and Stalin.

Wagenknecht’s rise in the political world began in the 1990s when she joined the post-communist PDS, the predecessor of the current Left Party. In 2004, she was elected to the German Bundestag for the first time for the left, a rapid rise that not only brought her friends.

In 2004, moderator Günter Gaus asked her in his interview series ‘On the Person’: ‘Publicly ridiculed, sometimes ridiculed, sometimes excluded – what is it like to live with a dissident?’ Wagenknecht replied dryly: “I can actually live with that, because I have the feeling that I don’t just represent such a small minority.” This attitude continues throughout her political career to this day.

Putin’s girlfriend is invited by Höcke

The definitive break with the left was already clear at the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Together with journalist Alice Schwarzer (80), she wrote the Manifesto for Peace, published on February 10, 2023. In it they call on Chancellor Olaf Scholz (65) to “stop the escalation of arms deliveries” after the Russian attack on Ukraine and instead to advocate diplomacy and negotiations.

The call announced therein and the uprising for a peace meeting, at which Wagenknecht spoke, were controversially discussed in public. AfD politician Björn Höcke (51) explicitly praised Wagenknecht’s call and saw consistent positions on the basis of which he invited her to join the AfD. But Wagenknecht never wanted – and still wants – never to join forces with the extreme right-wing party. Since then, it was only a matter of time before she left the party.

What does the new party want?

With her new party, which will soon emerge from the ‘Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance’, the traditionally left-wing politician is drifting further to the right. Wagenknecht testifies to an “incredible representation gap” in the German party system. The new alliance occupies an area in the German party system that has not been occupied by any of the previous parties – not even the AfD.

Wagenknecht’s planned party positions itself left in terms of economic policy, but conservative in terms of social policy. Somewhere between the left and the AfD – Wagenknecht would like to win votes from both parties. This is new for Germany. Whether their view can prevail remains doubtful at this point. Already in 2018, she tried to shake up the German political landscape with her collective movement ‘Get Up’. The movement quickly faded into obscurity – she hopes her current project will be more successful.