Following the German federal election on February 23, a new party could officially enter the German parliament, the Bundestag: the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, named after its firebrand founder, who split from the Left Party in 2023.

Her eclectic mix of left-leaning economic policies, anti-migrant rhetoric, and a foreign policy that is pro-Russia, anti-Israel, and deeply distrustful of NATO has enabled the party to amass votes in recent elections.

At the EU elections in June, it collected  6% of the vote. And in regional elections in three eastern states in autumn, it became the third-strongest party, earning it a spot in the ruling coalitions in Brandenburg and Thuringia.

The Alliance, called by its German acronym BSW, was officially formed in January 2024. Technically, it already has ten seats in the Bundestag after Wagenknecht – a former co-leader of the Left Party and sitting member since 2009 – took nine defectors with her.

Now, BSW will, for the first time, contest a national election, currently polling at between 4% and 6% (a 5% minimum is needed to enter the Bundestag). The Left Party, meanwhile, is trailing at just 3%-4%.

The rise of BSW

The BSW’s rise has been meteoric; its speed is unprecedented in German politics, and its politics are hard to define. But who is the woman behind it? And will Wagenknecht succeed in remaking Germany’s political landscape?
Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of Germany's Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance party (BSW), attends a one day party congress in Bonn, Germany, January 12, 2025 (credit: REUTERS)
Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of Germany's Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance party (BSW), attends a one day party congress in Bonn, Germany, January 12, 2025 (credit: REUTERS)
Wagenknecht is perhaps best described as an old-school leftist. She was born in 1969 in Jena under the state-socialist regime of East Germany, where she was a member of the youth organization Free German Youth as a teenager.

She joined the ruling party, SED, in the final months before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. And, in 1991, she became a member of the party executive committee of PDS, the SED’s democratic-socialist successor, which fused with another party in 2007 to create the Left Party.

After the wall fell, Wagenknecht idolized East Germany’s past, fellow party members have said. In 2002, she voted against a PDS resolution that stated, “There is no justification for the dead at the [Berlin] Wall” – referring to the state’s policy of shooting those trying to flee to the West.

Until 2010, she was a member of the Communist Platform within the PDS and later the Left Party, a group of orthodox Marxists who saw Stalinism in favorable terms.

Already in the 1990s, her positions were strongly criticized within the PDS. But she still rose to become a leading member of the Left Party in the 2010s, despite being seen as an increasingly polarizing, even unruly figure that openly challenged party consensus time and time again.

A political icon

AMONG SOME voters, however, especially in Germany’s east, Wagenknecht became a political icon. Her sharp-tongued speeches delivered in elegant attire won her many fans.She once even donated one of her trademark colorful blouses to the Marxist newspaper Junge Welt to auction.

When asked how many blouses she would give away to get back the old socialist regime in East Germany, she said: “All that I have, of course.”

Wagenknecht’s bestselling books have further fueled her popularity. 2021’s The Self-Righteous, which criticizes identity politics and “lifestyle leftists” as privileged positions that do little to alleviate economic injustice, topped Der Spiegel’s bestseller list, ignited a debate on the Left, and was lauded by right-wingers critical of “woke” politics.

Her books and speaking gigs have netted her handsome side earnings, amounting to €750,000 in 2023. Among them: €10,000 for a talk at Swiss Rock Asset Management and a further €10,000 for one at the Swiss Institute of International Studies. Only four members of the Bundestag earned more in addition to their parliamentary salaries than Wagenknecht that year.
While still a member of the Left Party, she was criticized for often being absent from the Bundestag, with leading voices saying she should concentrate on her parliamentary work more. Many felt she put herself before her party.
In many respects, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance is the logical conclusion of her cult of personality. One member has referred to her as the Kaiser of her new party. And with the help of some wealthy backers – the party received a donation of €5.1 million from a German hi-tech investor, the largest single party donation in German history – she has put her polarizing persona on the ballot.
But even internally, many have criticized her authoritarian grip over her namesake party. Wagenknecht reportedly approves each member herself, keen to prevent “unwanted” activists from joining.
Her anti-migrant rhetoric appeals to voters who might otherwise vote for the extreme-right AfD – and could be damaging to the party’s image (the extreme-right magazine Compact featured her on the cover with the headline “The Best Chancellor,” in 2022).
However, Wagenknecht is also set on controlling the party’s line, seemingly unwilling to compromise with other leftists. “With such a young party, we naturally have to be careful that other issues aren’t suddenly able to gain majority support as the party grows,” she told the German newspaper TAZ in July.
As a result, BSW has surprisingly few members – just 1,000 across Germany. In some cities, it only has a single member, hindering an effective election campaign, as it relies on supporters whose membership applications are backlogged and who are growing increasingly frustrated due to the party’s top-down approach.

Remnants of communist days

PERHAPS THE strongest remnant of Wagenknecht’s communist days is her anti-Western stance on foreign policy, critical of the US, NATO, and Israel. Wagenknecht herself markets BSW as a “peace party.”
Just days before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, she said on a talk show that Russia “does not have any interest in marching into Ukraine, of course not.” Since then, she has repeatedly doubled down, denying Russian war crimes, amplifying Kremlin-aligned disinformation, and suggesting Ukraine should simply surrender.
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held a speech at the Bundestag in June, BSW left in protest – along with the AfD. Wagenknecht herself has never been to Ukraine as she fears she would be murdered there, she claims.
Wagenknecht’s anti-Israel stance has also earned her much criticism.
When former prime minister and president Shimon Peres addressed the Bundestag in 2010 on the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialism, she and her now fellow BSW politician, Sevim Dagdelen, refused to stand up after his speech to applaud with all other members of the Bundestag, as Wagenknecht “cannot show such respect to a statesman who himself is responsible for war,” she later said.
Since October 7, Wagenknecht has accused Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza of having the “traits of a campaign of annihilation,” using the German word Vernichtungsfeldzug, often used in connection with the crimes of the Nazis.
Her party has filed motions to block German arms exports to Israel and accused the German government of “aiding and abetting war crimes.” But she has also repeatedly stressed she supports Israel’s right to exist and condemned the Hamas-led attack against Israel.
As a result, Germany’s Central Council of Jews has strongly criticized Wagenknecht, with its president, Josef Schuster, saying in an interview in August that she “fuels Israel-hatred in Germany with rather populist positions” and has a “tendency towards conspiracy theories.”
BSW was the only party to vote against a resolution against antisemitism passed in the Bundestag in November. And after Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans were hunted through the streets of Amsterdam in the same month, a leading member of BSW, Klaus Ernst, claimed on X/Twitter that the Mossad was allegedly among them, as he sought to blame the Israeli fans for the violence against them.
On the eve of Germany’s next federal election, BSW’s prospects are still far from certain. Despite initial euphoria following a string of strong election results in eastern Germany and on the EU level, support is waning.
Until the current coalition – comprised of Social Democrats, Greens, and the pro-business FDP – crumbled, BSW was consistently polling at 8%, a strong showing for a first-time party. But whether it will clear the 5% threshold needed to enter the Bundestag is now unclear, recent data show.
One reason is that Wagenknecht has been conspicuously absent from the campaign trail, so far, organizing few events. The surprise election caught BSW off guard, which had banked on more time to raise funds and consolidate its nascent structure. Another is the structure itself: Media reports critical of the strictly hierarchical organization and its authoritarian style of management have done it few favors.
By founding a party named after herself, Wagenknecht has put her personal brand on the ballot on February 23. But whether Germany will vote to extend the Sahra Wagenknecht show for another season will be a close call. The

Jerusalem Post approached Sahra Wagenknecht for comment but received no response as of press time.