Federal party conference: Left: “We will not leave the East to the Nazis”

At the same time, she sharply attacked the policies of the black-red coalition in the federal government and of Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU). “Merz is taking a chainsaw to our pension, our health, our working hours, our education,” said the Left leader. “People are right to be angry.” She announced social protests. “Anyone who plans the biggest social robbery since Agenda 2010 will receive our massive resistance.”

“A Friedrich who ran along”

Bundestag parliamentary group leader Heidi Reichinnek denounced the government’s plans to introduce maximum weekly working hours instead of daily. The eight-hour day is a historic achievement, said Reichinnek. “We certainly won’t let some Friedrich or some Jens come along take that away from us,” she said, referring to Chancellor Merz and Union parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn (CDU).

The Left stays close to the people and advises, among other things, heating costs or conscientious objection. “This is not a show, this is not PR, this is the left,” she said. “We are not engaged in a culture war, we are engaged in a class struggle.” Reichinnek warned of strife within his own ranks. “The only people who can make us fail are ourselves,” she said.

Appeal to one’s own ranks on the Middle East

Schwerdtner also appealed to her comrades not to allow themselves to be divided. She herself once deviated from her party’s decision regarding the situation in Gaza: “I decided to call it a genocide.” There are different views on this within the party. These differences have to be tolerated.

At the same time, she emphasized: “No mother or father in Germany should have to be afraid of sending their own child to a Jewish school. No one in this country should have to be afraid of visiting a synagogue or wearing a kippah on the street. We protect Jewish life in this country and everywhere.”

At the party conference, two speakers from Israel received particularly sustained applause. Vered Berman, a descendant of Holocaust survivors, said her mother was killed in an attack by a Palestinian assassin. At the same time, she mentioned Palestinian victims of Israeli violence. The two should not be played off against each other, said Berman. “The entire system of occupation needs to be abolished.”

Anti-Semitism is also real in Germany, she continued. “The fight against anti-Semitism is a left-wing duty.” But it cannot be separated from the fight against racism, disenfranchisement and war crimes. “We must combat all forms of dehumanization.”

The Israeli communist and Knesset member Aida Touma-Soliman accused the Israeli government of apartheid and “genocide”. She spoke out against German arms exports to Israel and called on the German left to stick to its criticism of the Israeli government.

“Keep the AfD away from the levers of power”

The approximately 500 delegates will discuss the party’s line in Potsdam until Sunday and elect a new leadership. Schwerdtner is running again, alongside Bundestag member Luigi Pantisano. Co-chairman Jan van Aken is stepping down for health reasons.

The main motion takes a tough stance against the black-red coalition, against the “turning point and attacks on the welfare state”. “The conversion to an arms economy is a wrong path,” it is said. “Conservatives and economic liberals are using their historic opportunity to dismantle the welfare state.”

In the application, the Left presents itself as an option for those who “choose for the AfD for the first time out of anger”. She takes a sharp stance against the AfD and calls for a ban. She keeps alliances with others open: This does not rule out collaboration with the CDU.

Delicate Middle East topic

The party conference scheduled the debate about the Middle East conflict and Israel on Friday evening. A motion from the party leadership expressly acknowledges the “right of self-determination of Jews in the current state of Israel” and of Palestinians “in an independent state of Palestine.” At the entrance to the party conference grounds at the Filmpark Babelsberg, however, critics mobilized against an alleged “Zionist course of the party”.

It is unclear exactly where the 500 or so delegates are. Around half are new members from after 2023. The party has since grown from around 50,000 to 126,000 members.