What to make of Die Linke

EVERY TIME Olaf Scholz or Annalena Baerbock is asked about a coalition with Die Linke (The Left), a party that emerged in 2007 from the ashes of East Germany’s Communist Party, they furiously beat around the bush. Mr Scholz, the Social Democratic Party’s (SPD) candidate for the chancellorship, says that he needs a clear commitment to NATO from any future coalition partner. Ms Baerbock, the Green Party’s candidate, says that she will talk to all democratic parties—and Die Linke is a democratic party too.

At the beginning of this month, leaders of Die Linke seemed to be courting the SPD and the Greens with an offer of a “progressive alliance” that could achieve leftist policy goals such as higher taxes on the rich and rent caps. The party even struck its oft-repeated demand to abolish NATO from its Sofortprogramm, its immediate policy measures. Yet in recent days the party has dispelled any impression of a more moderate course. At a televised debate on September 13th, Janine Wissler, the co-head of Die Linke, proclaimed again that her party wants to dissolve NATO and turn it into a collective security alliance that includes Russia. When asked how the Left could possibly be part of a coalition government while holding such a policy, she replied that foreign policy consisted of more than just NATO.

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