At a “peace demonstration” in Berlin, the Left and the SPD Left share the stage with Sahra Wagenknecht. SPD man Ralf Stegner is looking for a connection – and is rejected.
Whenever Sahra Wagenknecht wants to demonstrate against the war in Berlin, the weather is really bad. This Thursday at 13 degrees, drizzle brings out umbrellas and the collars of functional jackets are turned up.
The Brandenburg Gate is not available this time, not because of the German unity holiday, but because of a family celebration. Otherwise, a lot of things here in front of the Victory Column are similar to the first two demos in February and November 2023.
A song comes out of the loudspeakers about anonymous elites who would “corrupt” the people. The Marxist “Junge Welt” is distributing an issue on “75 Years of the GDR”. Above all, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine is still raging. Wagenknecht’s environment helped organize the demonstration again – together with a large number of organizations that operate as the German peace movement.
“Those over there stole the word peace”
Anett, an educator from Berlin, and her colleague Torsten can only smile wearily about this. Together they stand on the sidelines of a small pro-Ukrainian counter-demonstration. “Those over there stole the word peace,” says Torsten. “They don’t say surrender, but that’s what they mean,” says Anett. She holds a Ukrainian flag with the inscription “Slava Ukraini” in her hand.
“Those over there” are now over ten thousand people. The organizers speak of 40,000, the police of a number in the “low five-digit range”. The call for the demonstration had three central demands: the end of all German arms deliveries to Ukraine and Israel. Immediate negotiations in the East and the Middle East. And preventing the planned stationing of US medium-range missiles in Germany.
The Left Party should not be missing either. The first “peace demonstration” marked the final break with Wagenknecht a year and a half ago. She now has her own party. Since then, Die Linke has been trying hard to get a foot in the door, which many comrades believed they themselves had slammed shut. That’s why many party members came. They appear to be more than the groups of BSW supporters.
“The question of guilt” will be answered later
The chairman of the Left Bundestag group, Sören Pellmann, is also literally showing his colors. The left is here “to send a signal to the government that this movement is not being controlled by the right,” he says. Peace is needed. Pellmann doesn’t want to dwell on too much complexity. A recent campaign launched by his group against arms sales says not a single word about Russia’s role in Ukraine. “We don’t want to blame anyone now,” says Pellmann. “The question of guilt” would have to be answered later.
Above all, Die Linke relies on Gesine Lötzsch, party veteran, six-time directly elected member of the Bundestag in Berlin and member of the budget committee. Lötzsch criticizes from the stage that the federal government wants to meet NATO’s two percent target. Such military spending is nothing less than “the path to the war economy and the abyss.”
“Build fewer tanks, build more schools”
Of course, Lötzsch also has an idea of what the money should be spent on instead: “Let’s build fewer tanks and more schools.” Tanks would have a catastrophic environmental balance anyway. This is well received by the crowd – significantly better than the next speaker’s performance.
The SPD leftist and member of the Bundestag Ralf Stegner arrived with big goals. His party must be at the “front of the peace movement,” it says in an appeal he co-signed.
Ralf Stegner hears shouts of “Get out!”
The moderator of the demo presents Stegner primarily as a critic of the planned stationing of US medium-range missiles. But the SPD politician doesn’t want to make it that easy. In view of German history and the liberation from Nazi rule, one can be an opponent of the war, but “hardly a pacifist,” he says. The crowd becomes restless. When Stegner then calls the Russian war of aggression a “Russian war of aggression,” boos are loud. As he defends the German support for the Ukrainian air defense, shouts of “get out” ring out.
Stegner continues to talk and calls for more diplomatic initiatives, albeit “behind the scenes.” There is some applause. He doesn’t mention the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin has just announced that he doesn’t even want to speak to Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the phone.
After his speech, which an older listener says was “important, but not good,” Stegner remains standing next to the stage. “Politics is not a fair-weather event,” he says. There are tens of thousands of people here and they shouldn’t be left to Sahra Wagenknecht. And yes, his position is also that of the entire SPD.
Michel Roth might see it completely differently. The SPD man chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag and speaks at the small counter-demonstration within earshot on this drizzly day.
Lafontaine helps Gauweiler into his coat
After Stegner, Peter Gauweiler speaks. The eternal CSU renegade and former member of the Bundestag says that the EU should not act as a “divider of a new division” between Russia and Europe. Gauweiler’s good friend, Wagenknecht’s husband Oskar Lafontaine, then helps him with his coat. And then it’s her turn, the icon of the movement.
Wagenknecht knows what she’s doing. She praises the demonstrators and she praises Gauweiler. She has “great respect” for Stegner. But then she divides him from his own party. “The SPD of Olaf Scholz and Boris Pistorius is certainly not part of the peace movement,” says Wagenknecht. The left doesn’t even mention it.
They have become “louder and more powerful,” she exclaims. Wagenknecht revived the peace movement at a time when the Greens were in favor of arms deliveries, the extreme right AfD emerged as a new “peace party” and some leftists were still readjusting their image of Russia. Now she no longer wants to give up this claim to leadership. Since the state elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg, it has also been driving the CDU and SPD.
By Wagenknecht’s standards, what follows is an almost tame speech. She complains about the culture of debate, while at the same time accusing Chancellor Scholz and Defense Minister Pistorius of “blindly” doing “what anyone in Washington would tell them.”
Wagenknecht calls Baerbock a security risk
Such contradictions are part of their mandatory program, as is an attack on the Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. She had that star said that the BSW’s electoral successes “risked the security of our country.” In fact, Baerbock himself is a “security risk for Germany,” says Wagenknecht. She then condemns “Hamas terror” and somehow also Putin (“Anyone who starts a war is a criminal”), but she also puts Israel and the USA on the same level as them.
At the end of her speech, Wagenknecht would like to see a “battalion of military warriors”. Supporters of arms deliveries such as the Green Anton Hofreiter, CDU foreign politician Roderich Kiesewetter or the Liberal Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann could prove themselves in the war. That sounds like the “greens to the front” that can be heard and read so often at AfD demos.
But the applause that followed leaves little doubt that this is exactly what many “peace activists” want to hear.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
