As the world’s richest person meddles at will on behalf of the far right in the German election campaign, a leftist party calling for taxing billionaires out of existence has risen from the ashes in the race’s final stretch.
The far-left Linke, successor to the East German communists who built the Berlin Wall and just months ago on life support after an internal schism, has had a surprise resurgence before the 23 February poll.
As it responds to a radically shifting zeitgeist, the Linke is attracting strong new support from women and young voters with its call for “democratic socialism” marked by affordable housing, income equality, climate protection and pacifism.
One of its rising stars, MP Heidi Reichinnek, 36, recently went viral on social media eviscerating the conservative frontrunner Friedrich Merz in parliament for accepting support from the far right for his hardline immigration proposals.
“You’ve made yourself an accomplice and today you’ve changed this country for the worse,” Reichinnek, her forearm decorated with a tattoo of the revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, said in a rousing speech as the CDU leader tried to laugh off the frontal attack.
“Resist fascism in this country. To the barricades,” she cried, quoting the old leftist anthem in a video watched more than 30m times in its first week online, according to the Linke.
With Elon Musk and the US vice-president JD Vance openly courting the anti-immigrant, anti-Islam Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the German election campaign has undergone a dizzying scramble of traditional alliances.
As hard right populists succeed across much of Europe and incumbents such as Germany’s Social Democrat (SPD) chancellor, Olaf Scholz, fail to meet the moment, many leftist voters in particular have said they feel unsure where to turn, creating an opening for the once down-and-out Linke.
“The explosion of rents in cities has hurt so many people and the Linke is the only party really addressing it,” said Michael Müllich, 26, at a standing-room-only campaign event last week in the Treptow district of eastern Berlin.
Asked whether a Linke vote may be wasted given its slim chances of entering government, the computer science student said the party’s “tax the rich” message was crucial. “And I’m counting on it to stand up to the AfD when it becomes the biggest opposition party,” Müllich added.
Syrian-born Marah Abo Zraa, who works in administration for the city government, said she was “excited” to vote for the Linke in the first national election since she became a German citizen in 2023.
“The lurch to the right really scares me, although I couldn’t be better integrated [into German society],” said the 19-year-old, who arrived with the 2015 refugee influx. “The Linke is the one party really rejecting hate and incitement. All the other parties seem to want to fight the AfD by imitating it.”
The unpopular Scholz’s fractious government collapsed in November but refused to step aside in favour of his defence minister, Boris Pistorius, potentially setting up the SPD for its worst result since the second world war in Sunday’s snap election.
With climate protection slipping from the agenda as the economy, Europe’s largest, limps along in recession, the Greens have returned to the low double digits in the polls – kingmakers at best.
Meanwhile, Sahra Wagenknecht, the left’s most prominent face before Reichinnek, defected from the Linke and formed her own party a year ago with a nativist call for slashing immigration, increasing social welfare benefits for German citizens and reviving ties to the Kremlin.
After a strong run in June’s European elections and three eastern state polls in September, however, her BSW party’s national campaign has since fizzled amid internal divisions.
Robert Ketel and Sarah Knothe, a couple doing their grocery shopping in Hennigsdorf, a traditional SPD stronghold north of Berlin where the AfD has made significant inroads, said they were both still undecided.
“I know I’m going to vote for a leftist party but the SPD with Scholz has been a disappointment in reducing inequality and working with our neighbours. We need new leadership – that’s obvious,” said Ketel, 34, who is unemployed.
“I was tempted by the BSW and voted for it in the state election [in September] but Wagenknecht just attacks the other parties rather than making the case for her own,” said Knothe, 35, a teaching assistant. “It’s become more of a cult of personality – it’s always about her.”
The Linke, the BSW and the pro-business Free Democrats were just weeks ago all teetering on the 5% hurdle to parliamentary representation in opinion polls.
But the Linke, which has had to hunt for bigger campaign venues in the last two weeks to accommodate the crowds, is now seen as most likely to get over the line after growing to 6-7% support, according to polling.
Reichinnek has argued the BSW split allowed the Linke to staunch years of internal squabbling and focus on its core cost of living issues. The party has also softened key foreign policy stances including opposition to Nato, now condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while calling for a “diplomatic” solution to the conflict.
Linke membership has surged to the highest level since the 2009 financial crisis and pollsters say that some of the ground lost to the far right in the former communist east has been regained among west German intellectuals, particularly students.
Merz, who has positioned his CDU/CSU bloc far to the right of where it was under the former chancellor Angela Merkel, has ruled out forming a coalition with the AfD, which is polling in second place with about 20%.
But many voters say they were unsettled by Merz’s gambit to solicit far-right votes for a tougher border policy in response to the arrest of an Afghan asylum seeker after a deadly knife attack. Analysts say the drive to the right may have in turn reinvigorated the left, with the Linke best placed to benefit.
Just as the AfD’s strength has alarmed the conservatives, the far-left renaissance may serve as a wake-up call to the weakened SPD and the Greens that they risk losing touch with younger voters.
A mock election held among the under-18s last week showed the Linke coming in first place with more than 20%, followed by the SPD on 18%, the CDU/CSU and the AfD nearly tied at almost 16% each. The Greens came in a distant last place among the main parties with just over 12%.
