This is the second part of Victor Grossman’s Berlin Bulletin on German politics under the new Merz government; read part one here.

IS THERE no opposition to Germany’s dominant parties’ commitment to austerity and war?

Some seek opposition in Germany’s second-strongest party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), chosen by an alarming 20.8 per cent in February, double its 2021 result. It polls currently at 25 per cent, neck and neck with the Christian Union, and recently ahead of it, thus for a day Germany’s strongest party.

They may support the AfD as a party which rejects more weapons for the Ukraine and thus consider it a peace party — and hope for peace is stronger on old German Democratic Republic territory than in the West, with less support for western Russophobia.

Many vote for the AfD to oppose an unfeeling Establishment controlled by the wealthy, reflecting a lasting disillusionment of many East Germans with the capitalist freedom, democracy and “blossoming landscapes” promised as a reward for German unification. In Gorlitz (see part one) the AfD is by far the strongest party.

Perhaps the largest number support it because they, too, have been led to believe in anti-immigrant racism, a hatred of “others,” especially Muslims, with whom few have had any human contact.

Some misconceptions may be overcome; with hard-core racists and hatemongers it is rarely possible; these are outright fascists. And the AfD is definitely not a peace party, despite its stand on rapprochement with Vladimir Putin and Russia. Extremely nationalistic, it wants a big weapons build-up, the draft and “traditional families” with lots of German kids! And far lower taxes on the wealthy!

The AfD is a vigorous supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu, even his war on Gaza and Palestine, for it shares his hatred of Muslims. Despite this, some AfD sectors betray well-preserved strains of old Hitlerian anti-semitism. Though still embarrassingly extreme for many German and foreign leaders, and now facing an ongoing debate on forbidding the party as too “extremist” (though it has painfully open support from JD Vance, Elon Musk and Marco Rubio), the AfD is rather a reserve army at hand in case of need, such as to confront genuine working-class opposition — like the Nazi Party during the Great Depression from 1929 to 1933. And some in the Union are already doing some AfD-flirting, despite loud “firewall” rejection.

A counterforce was expected when Sahra Wagenknecht, a former communist, a wonderful speaker and debater with great charisma, broke away from the disastrously split and seemingly doomed Die Linke (The Left) party to form a new party, using her very popular name, taking some of its best and brainiest members with it. Within 10 short months this infant, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), achieved election results surprising for a newcomer, far ahead of its shrunken parent.

Its main talking points: decided opposition to support for Volodymyr Zelensky’s Ukraine and a demand for negotiations and peace there. Opposition to Israeli mass annihilation and expansion. A rejection of dangerous missiles on German soil, most especially US ones! And a posture of protest against the Establishment.

But questions arose: its power structure seemed based on one leader who tried, not always with success, to impose her decisions over differing local tactics, with a related policy of top-level vetting of every single applicant for membership — “to keep out questionable or subversive entries.” The result: only a few hundred members to fight the campaign in February and a heartbreaking defeat, with 4.98 per cent of the vote — about  0.015 per cent or 9,500 votes short of the 5 per cent needed to get into the Bundestag (out of some 50 million voters).  

It disputed the dubious results in court, but in vain. And BSW polling since then has been glued to 4 per cent and may be weakening, even in two states where it is in the government.

A problem has been its position, similar to nearly all other parties, against immigration and basically against immigrants. Many saw this as a pragmatic attempt to win anti-immigrant voters away from the AfD. If so, it failed. They stayed with the AfD or the Union.

Turn this story on its head for Die Linke. Down to a seemingly hopeless 3-4 per cent last November, and suddenly facing an unexpected election, it changed gear completely.

Knocking on 60,000 doors in key areas it simply asked those who opened what most concerned them and centred its campaign on the response. It was almost always frightening rent increases, the lack of affordable housing and prices, especially of groceries and heating.

They offered advice centres, online or in person, for people needing advice and helped those fighting illegal rent increases. Especially in Berlin they promoted co-ordination with people of immigrant background, often Turkish or Kurdish, and adopted a newly fresh, clearly anti-Establishment tone, breaking with attempts to look respectable in hopes of acceptance into the government.

A new central figure was young Heidi Reichinnek, whose clothes, tattoos, fast-talking speech and forceful words and gestures were evidently just what many young Germans liked, watching her on TikTok. When the votes were counted, Die Linke had climbed within two months from  4 per cent to 8.8 per cent, it was the favourite among women under 30, and it won an incredible first place (19.9 per cent) among Berlin voters.

It won six Bundestag seats directly: the former Thuringian minister president Bodo Ramelow, a popular leader in Leipzig and four in Berlin, including one, with Turkish background, who was the first Die Linke deputy elected in any formerly West German or West Berlin district. Because of proportional representation the party now has 64 Bundestag seats (of 630). As usual, a majority (37) of the Linke deputies will be women. It is polling steadily at 10 per cent.

One reason for Die Linke’s success was doubtless its refusal to join the other parties, including Wagenknecht’s, in playing to anti-immigrant prejudice. We are a class party, it stressed: every working person is our comrade, we stand for international solidarity regardless of colour or origin, and we fight together for their and our rights. Are there problems involved? Of course. But they can be overcome by spending not on weapons but on schools, home construction, recruiting new teachers and doctors, helping newcomers get training, jobs and homes.

Foreign policy was far more complicated, with disagreement about Israel and Palestine and about Ukraine. But during the election campaign these questions would be avoided: they were not uppermost in voters’ minds. This was a pragmatic decision, aimed at rescuing the party — and it worked.

At the party congress in late April, the situation was different. Some “reformist” party leaders lean towards Nato positions, others condemn Russia’s march into Ukraine but view Nato, led by the US and Germany, as the most menacing aggressors.

Regarding the other main disagreement, one delegate angrily defended Israel’s right to “self-defence” and attempted to “balance” events in Gaza. In a heated response, another stated: “It is not Israel’s right to existence which is threatened but, acutely, the lives of the Palestinians and the right of existence of Palestine.”

On this issue, too, a  sort of compromise was reached, clearly rejecting the virtual ultimatum of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), basically stamping any criticism of even immense Israeli atrocities as “anti-semitic,” and used to silence any such criticism; and endorsing instead the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-semitism, adopted by hundreds of academics, also Israelis, which defends the right to criticism.

In general compromise was agreed upon, surprisingly necessary in a party calling itself “left.” But party co-chair Ines Schwerdtner could speak out: “Children in the Gaza Strip are being purposely starved to death. We are the opposition to this. We are against cuts in help for Gaza, against sending arms, against war. There can be no double standards in regard to war criminals.”

In general the congress represented more than in many years a compromise, avoiding a split and leaving various tough, even basic questions for the future.

There was agreement on limiting deputies and office-holders to three terms only, to expect — or require — to donate shares of their large salaries to good public purposes, and to turn attention far more to action in the streets, workshops, colleges and neighbourhoods, with far more working people as candidates.

There was a novel stress favouring good spirits in the party, friendliness, cultural activities and even humour. In a way, the congress was a peaceful, even joyful celebration of the party’s rescue and success, with justified pride in the election result and joy that, within a few months, party membership shot up from less than 60,000 to over 120,000, mostly young people. The road ahead will hardly be free of obstacles and potholes, but there is finally new hope.

Even more! As opposed to the past drift towards reformism and status quo acceptance by too many leaders, we hear one new co-chair, Ines Schwerdtner, formerly editor of the German edition of Jacobin, urging that capitalism be replaced by an economic order which “no longer oppresses people but offers them dignity and health … that is the heart of our policy.”

She was seconded by the party’s new live wire in the Bundestag, Heidi Reischinnek: “Yes, we want to rid ourselves of an economic system in which the wealthy get wealthier and the poor ever poorer; where seniors must collect bottles for the deposit pennies, and children sit in school classes with hungry stomachs. Where the jobless are duped, the many exploited, people lose their lives in hospitals because of the orientation to profit making ... such a system has nothing in common with democracy, nothing whatsoever.

“If it is radical to demand freedom and rights for everyone equally, then let us be radical.”

It is still not clear which direction this party will take. Or if some day the two parts will join together. But despite all the pitfalls there seems to be a genuine basis for left-wing hope and new, militant action — all so desperately needed in Germany, as elsewhere.