State elections: Former GDR civil rights activists warn against coalitions with BSW

Former GDR civil rights activists are warning against the new Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance party participating in the government after the state elections in East Germany. The background to this is statements from the BSW on the war in Ukraine. There is great concern that the BSW could participate in government, particularly because of its foreign policy positions, said the former head of the Stasi Records Authority, Marianne Birthler, to the German Press Agency.

This concern is also the tenor of an open letter that, according to Birthler, originated in Saxony and is supported by her. The former civil rights activist and last GDR foreign minister, Markus Meckel (SPD), also confirmed to the dpa that he supports the letter. Party founder Sahra Wagenknecht rejected the criticism and sharply attacked the initiators.

Appeal to “democratic parties”

In the paper published on Platform X, statements by Wagenknecht and other BSW members on the war in Ukraine are criticized as factually incorrect. Among other things, Wagenknecht said on public radio in mid-2023 that all military experts predicted a defeat for Ukraine in its defensive struggle against Russia – which is not the case. Other examples are cited that the authors consider misleading.

The letter ends with an appeal to the “democratic parties” and especially the CDU to think carefully about whether they want to enter into a coalition with the BSW after the state elections and whether they want to be tolerated. In addition, the parties should distance themselves more clearly from the “national socialism” of the BSW, the paper continues. According to the initiators, 58 people are behind this.

Wagenknecht: Party apparently wants to be discredited

Wagenknecht reacted sharply. “The letter is hardly in the spirit of the GDR civil rights movement, many of whose members campaigned for peace, diplomacy and an end to the arms race under the slogans ‘Create peace without weapons’ and ‘Swords into plowshares’,” the BSW chairwoman explained when asked.

“To defame the effort to bring about a diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine as Russian propaganda is also an insult to millions of East Germans who are rightly afraid of a major European war.”

A new party that speaks from the heart of many people is apparently being discredited just a few weeks before crucial elections, speculated Wagenknecht. “The fact that many East Germans are currently reminded of the narrow-mindedness of the GDR era in political debates should really bring former civil rights activists to the fore.” But the letter writers have clearly largely lost contact with the population.

Civil rights activists demonstrated – Wagenknecht joined the SED

Civil rights activists such as Meckel and Birthler or the Saxon Martin Böttger, now the initiator of the open letter, protested against the GDR’s unity party SED and the government in East Berlin in the autumn of 1989 until they fell. Wagenknecht, on the other hand, joined the SED in 1989. She defended the GDR for years after its end. She later distanced herself from this.

In September, new state parliaments will be elected in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg. In surveys, the BSW is achieving values ​​of 15 to 20 percent in the three states. The CDU in the three states has not ruled out possible cooperation with the BSW. Wagenknecht said last week that the BSW would only participate in a state government “that also takes a clear position in federal politics for diplomacy and against preparations for war.”