The Surprising Reincarnation of the German Left Party

Dan Hough

University of Sussex

Dr. Dan Hough is a Professor of Politics at the University of Sussex in the UK. His research focuses on party politics, corruption and anti-corruption. In terms of German politics, he's written one single-authored book on the Party of Democratic Socialism (the Left Party's predecessor) and one co-authored (with Jonathan Olsen and Michael Koss) book on the Left Party.

It was Mark Twain who allegedly claimed that rumors of his death had been greatly exaggerated. The leaders of Germany’s Left Party (Die Linke) don’t quite have Twain’s name recognition, but as daylight dawned on Monday, February 24, 2025, they, too, could quite rightly claim that the rumors of a death—that of their party—were also much overblown. The Left Party had taken more or less everyone by surprise and returned to Germany’s federal parliament.

Yet even as late as the end of January, with less than a month to polling day, few really saw any such electoral revival coming. On January 28, for example, Ipsos, the opinion pollster, had the Left Party coming in at 3 percent of the vote. Indeed, over time Ipsos’s data had been remarkably consistent; the Left Party had registered 3 percent in every poll that the pollster had conducted since May 2024. The last time Ipsos had the Left Party at 5 percent was January 2024, and the last time that the Left Party was seen to be above that was back in September 2023 (6 percent).

Even with the cautionary note that there’s always a margin of error in these polls, the message was clear; the Left Party was consistently trending below the all-important 5 percent it needed to gain meaningful access to the post-2025 federal parliament.

Left Party members were well aware of that. Indeed, party leaders were openly admitting that their focus was as much on winning three constituencies as it was on getting five percent of the vote. In November 2024 Ines Schwerdtner, co-leader of the party, launched ‘Mission Silberlocke’ (literally ‘Mission Korean Fir’, named after the tree) to try and increase the party’s chances of winning six constituencies in its eastern German heartland. The three most prominent parts of that mission were the well-known trio of Gregor Gysi, Dietmar Bartsch, and Bodo Ramelow. With a combined age of 212, they were hardly in the first flush of youth, and it was their aging personas—and the grey tint that was part and parcel of the Korean Fir’s distinctive needle-like leaves—that gave the ‘mission’ its resonance.

Gysi, Bartsch, and Ramelow offered gravitas and indeed a wealth of political experience, but that alone does not really explain the 8.8 percent of the vote (and 64 seats) that the Left Party ultimately won. The much younger duo of Schwerdtner and Heidi Reichinnek (both 36 years of age) also made a real impact. Reichinnek in particular became something of a social media sensation when in a parliamentary speech on immigration she launched a tirade against the Alternative for Germany (AfD), demanding that democrats of all colors man the barricades to defeat the far-right party.

The Left Party’s rejuvenation was not all on account of actions that it chose to take.

The changing dynamic around the Left Party led Germans to positively flock to the party’s cause. Over 23,000 new members were registered between the turn of the year and election day. Many of them were at the younger end of the spectrum. Reichinnek’s social media popularity undoubtedly had something to do with that; the Left Party transformed itself into a spikey actor looking to face down the far-right but also to defend the interests of those who were not necessarily able to defend themselves (such as those living in precarious living environments and those coming to Germany looking for sanctuary).

25 percent of Germans between the ages of 18-24 subsequently voted for the Left Party on election day. That was 17 percentage points up from the last election in 2021. Young females seemed to be particularly keen to support the party, as were those who were voting for the first time. Yet the Left Party’s rejuvenation was not all on account of actions that it chose to take. It was helped by three things that happened more or less independently of it.

Firstly, Christian Democratic (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz took an educated gamble in pushing the issue of immigration to the very forefront of the campaign. Passing motions in parliament with the help of the AfD—as Merz did in late January—shocked and appalled many on the left and center-left. That almost certainly prompted some voters to move toward the Linke as what they saw as the only genuine bulwark against what looked like a worrying drift rightwards.

Secondly, the Left Party itself had been plagued for many years by unedifying internal infighting. Sahra Wagenknecht, a prominent but highly idiosyncratic Left Party politician, was at the center of many of the conflicts on issues ranging from Ukraine to migration and gender politics. Despite being the co-chair of the Left Party’s parliamentary group from 2015 to 2019, Wagenknecht left the Linke in October 2023 and formed her own party, the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), in January 2024.

The party enjoyed initial successes in eastern regional elections, but by the autumn, the BSW began losing its verve. The Left, meanwhile, had lanced the boil and could begin to refresh itself without Wagenknecht planting incendiary devices from within.

Finally, the very fact that two left-of-center parties, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens, were part of a coalition that was widely unloved also helped the Left Party. Around 560,000 former SPD voters and 700,000 former Green voters put their respective Xs next to the Linke this time round. The party’s losses to the BSW, meanwhile, were a manageable 350,000 that was largely compensated by 290,000 previous non-voters coming to the Left Party’s cause.

Will the Left Party’s increased popularity last? The momentum generated in the last weeks of the election campaign will no doubt dissipate quite quickly. The Linke is nonetheless in a much better position to articulate its agenda than it previously was. Putting it bluntly, the very fact that it’s still alive and kicking is a success. That alone is something that the Left Party rank and file could barely contemplate just a few short weeks ago.