But it wasn't just Wagenknecht's traditional left-wing supporters who enthusiastically cheered her message of 'peace'. Also in the audience were neo-Nazis and supporters of the far-right AfD party:
"Among the crowd in Berlin was Jürgen Elsässer, editor of a far-right-wing magazine, and dozens of members of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party who cheered Wagenknecht’s calls to cut off Ukraine. Elsässer’s Compact magazine had recently declared on its cover that Wagenknecht was: “The best chancellor — a candidate for the left and the right.”"
There is a tradition in Germany dating back to the Weimar Republic of far-right and left-wing dissidents joining forces in a Querfront ("Cross-Front") in order to fight against democracy and capitalism in favor of some sort of ne0-fascist authoritarian order. The Querfront of the Weimar Republic was eventually subsumed into the national- socialist NSDAP, which used a combination of populist economics and hyper-nationalism to attract working class voters. What a new Querfront-party led by Sahra Wagenknecht would look like an stand for is unclear, but initial polling indicates it could conceivably attract up to 20% of the electorate - and potentially much more in eastern Germany, where Sahra enjoys strong support.
Last week Der Spiegel published a profile of Sahra Wagenknecht and outlined what a Wagenknecht-Querfront political party might look like:
Comments