• Transatlantic Left Voices

Ten years after its founding, the Alternative für Deutschland shows no sign of moderating its politics.

• Transatlantic Left Voices

Expectations were high when the new German government took office one year ago today, on 8 December 2021. After 16 years of Angela Merkel, newly elected Chancellor Olaf Scholz from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) promised a new beginning. The governing coalition consisting of Social Democrats, Greens, and the Free Democrats (FDP) — known as […]

• Transatlantic Left Voices

Germans will vote in federal elections on Sunday, September 26 elections. Current polling shows no clear front runner, and there is talk of many possible governing coalitions. But one thing is certain, after more than 15 years in office, Angela Merkel will no longer be Chancellor. But what is at stake for Germans in this election? And what are the prospects for the Left going into the September vote? Watch this conversation between Die Linke MP Stefan Liebich and RLS-NYC Director Andreas Günther about these questions and more.

• Transatlantic Left Voices

Any message of solidarity, of a political alliance between the middle class and the working class, of fighting against the powers-that-be, is an uphill battle. If Die Linke wants to build solidarity in the face of growing social inequality and the rise of the far-right in Europe and around the world, the party first must demonstrate that it can practice solidarity within its own ranks.

• Transatlantic Left Voices

Despite considerable successes in party building, organizing, strengthened social movements (Fridays for Future, the tenants’ movement, Black Lives Matter, anti-police law movements, etc.) and Die Linke as an important partner in them, as well as a few exemplary left-wing governments on the state level, Germany’s main socialist party, Die Linke, is stagnating at 7 percent in the polls (2 percent less than recent election results—or worse). A look at possible causes should in no way distract from engagement in the election campaign, but rather clarify its importance once again.

• History from Below

The Present and Future of the Past It’s difficult for me to write about it today. I was born in 1954, 16 years after the pogrom in the night of 9–10 November 1938. And yet I still wake up time and again from nightmares in which trains roll east—towards the extermination camps. I see people […]

• Transatlantic Left Voices

The State of Germany in the Run-Up to the September 2017 Parliamentary Elections Germany’s Bundestag elections are a mere two months away and one thing is certain: unlike many other European Union countries, in Germany all signs point to continuity. During and after the 2008 financial crisis, as well as the eurozone crisis that subsequently […]

• Transatlantic Left Voices

Black people have lived in Europe for centuries, but their experiences in different countries have followed different trajectories. Immigration from the (former) colonies has reshaped French, British, and Dutch society, but the situation in Germany is somewhat distinct. Germany’s colonial period ended early, after World War I, and until recently, there has been little opportunity […]

• Global Solidarity

Passionately watching last week’s election returns* at the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung’s office in New York, without ever having been to Germany or learned more than a half-dozen German words, was an unusual experience. It was easy enough to orient my sympathies — as an American socialist they stood with the Left Party. My initial disappointment […]

• Transatlantic Left Voices

German federal elections will be held on September 22, and the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, looks primed for yet another victory. The CDU, in coalition with the die-hard neoliberal Free Democratic Party, has run a short campaign largely free of major substantive issues. They are instead relying on a […]

• Transatlantic Left Voices

The German political party DIE LINKE (Left Party) was established in 2007 as a merger of two previously independent parties: the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), founded in 1990 and predominantly anchored in East Germany, and the Electoral Alternative for Labor and Social Justice, founded in 2004 in the western part of the Republic. Since […]

• Transatlantic Left Voices

In September 2005, the Left Party emerged as a new player in German politics, receiving 8.7 percent of the vote and entering the federal parliament with 54 deputies. Where did the Left Party come from? What are its principal values and goals? And what challenges does the party face in its quest to become an […]