We offer you the content of an interview published today in Corriere della Sera by Mara Gergolet.
Sahra Wagenknecht: «EU too centralist, Ukraine can’t win. It is true that many voters of the old left have gone to the right, not because they are racist or nationalist, but because they are dissatisfied.” He founded a party that bears his name, because – he claims – the main problem of European progressives is that “their clientele today it is made up of privileged people.” Detractors accuse it of being populist, but the party is growing and in some regions of the East it is the second or third force. Enough to be able to break the balance of German politics.
In short, it has become a phenomenon. He welcomes us into his studio, with colleagues from the Polish Gazeta Wyborcza and the French La Croix, at 6pm. The plaque of his previous party, the Linke, is still hanging on the door. Red suit, silver earrings that move like small pendulums when he doesn’t agree, accentuating dissent, his knee exposed as if in front of the cameras. What it seems on TV is confirmed: halfway between a hieratic fifties figure and an austere actress, with natural charm, endowed with superior composure, control and dialectics: it is no coincidence that in TV debates she often dominates everyone.
Sahra Wagenknecht, why a new party? Who are you aiming for? «To people with medium or low incomes. Forgotten by everyone, even by the left. Thomas Piketty demonstrated in his book Capital and economy, statistics in hand, that historically the left has been voted for by the less privileged. Today it is the opposite. Take the Greens, I know it sounds like a cliché: those who vote for them have an academic education, live in the centre, shop in organic shops, drive electric cars. They want to ban everyone from flying, explain why you shouldn’t go on holiday in Mallorca and then fly all over the world. It’s this double standard that makes people angry.”
They sound like the speeches of Alternative fur Deutschland… «It’s true that many voters of the old left have gone to the right. But not because they are racist, nationalist, but because they are dissatisfied. Nobody defends their interests.”
He founded a “personal” party, the Union for Reason and Progress Sahra Wagenknecht. Isn’t this a habit of the right? «In Germany the legislation on parties is very rigid, the stability of the system also derives from this, it is difficult to found a new one. A new party must have its own profile. Now, I am relatively well known, my ideas are known. But the goal is for my name to eventually disappear. As I say in the book “Die Selbstgerechten” (The Conceited Ones), we are left-wing conservatives. How we were once upon a time, before this wave of identity, before the woke speeches.”
Let’s go back to the nineteenth century… «No, to Willy Brandt’s SPD. We are not retrograde, homophobic, thank God we have nothing to do with these theses. But from cannabis to prostitution, even on abortion – of course I am in favor of abortion, but not in the eighth month, nor even in the sixth – the left has taken a series of wrong positions.”
She often mocks Green Minister Annalena Baerbock and her feminist foreign policy. Aren’t you a feminist? «Feminism has nothing to do with it. It is a militaristic foreign policy: glorifying war and providing weapons. Truly scary where the Greens have ended up.” Are you talking about Ukraine? «And from Gaza. What we are doing with Israel, given its way of waging the war, makes us co-responsible. As for Ukraine: we will not end the conflict if we continue to hand over weapons without applying any pressure. The Pope is right. There must be negotiations now.”
So let’s keep the guns quiet, and then we’ll see what Putin does? «In the meantime, the front would freeze. If we had done it six months ago, it would have been better. This is what the Pope says. He didn’t talk about capitulation, but about the right way to avoid leading the country to suicide. I believe that Zelensky has no chance of winning the war, fueling this illusion is dangerous.”
He doesn’t think that Putin could then attack Poland. «No, because he is not capable of doing it. The Russian army failed to take Kiev. I exclude the possibility that they can stand a comparison with NATO.” You suggest normalizing relations with Russia. But the close ties between Germany and Russia have never been particularly successful… «From the Polish point of view, I understand the concerns. But Germany was never attacked by Russia, the opposite happened twice. It also applies to Western Europe.”
Does your party receive money from Moscow? «Of course not. It’s completely absurd, there were these two transfers of 35 euros from Russia. We take as much money from the Kremlin as we do from Trump or the Sicilian mafia.” What do you think of the EU? «That it should focus on what it can regulate. We want to dismantle centralization. We are for the Europe of sovereign democracies.” A Europe of homelands? «Homeland is perhaps a slightly dated concept, but I think the idea behind it is right. We want a Europe that cooperates, without rivalry and without hostility, but we are against a centralization of decisions in Brussels which then undermines democracy in individual countries. I think de Gaulle was an intelligent man. In any case, we do not want to preserve the current Europe, but to change it.”
His father was Iranian, his deputy Fabio Masi has Italian origins. Why — with these ties — is she so against immigration? «We are not against immigration in principle. Problems arise when too many people arrive and there is a lack of infrastructure. In Germany, 700 thousand homes, nurseries and teachers are urgently needed. An overload is created. The other critical point is when the identity of some migrant communities is based on the rejection of the culture of the host country. Let’s look at what happens in France, where there are unacceptable parallel realities in which radical Islam is practiced.”
Would you govern with the AfD? In the East you would have the numbers after the September elections. «I rule it out. In Saxony and Thuringia they are extremists.” He presented his party in a former GDR cinema. Sometimes he seems to be nostalgic for that world. «For me the fall of the Wall was a liberation. I had difficulties in East Germany, I wanted reforms, I had criticized the leaders, central planning. I couldn’t find a place at university despite my excellent grades. They asked me to be a secretary: so I replied that I would stay at home and read, and live by tutoring. The «Turning Point» was a blessing for me, I was able to study. At the same time I know that for those who were not 20 years old like me, the GDR was partly their biography. And when after reunification the West Germans claimed that their lives were worthless, they rebelled.”
