Dear friends of peace,

I am pleased to be able to address a greeting from Brandenburg to you.

I have been a member of the very young party BSW (the party around Sahra Wagenknecht) since January 2024, deputy state chairman, city councillor and, since October of this year, a member of the Brandenburg state parliament.

The BSW emerged from a break with the Left Party, the decisive factor being the stance on the war in Ukraine. The Left Party has submitted to the war policy of the federal government under Scholz. It is certainly no exaggeration to say that the BSW is today the only political force in Germany that has consistently raised its voice against this warmongering policy in parliament and has also mobilised mass demonstrations. We demand an immediate stop to arms deliveries, a ceasefire and negotiations. We also reject the government’s support for arms deliveries to the Netanyahu regime, which makes the government an accomplice in the genocidal war against the Palestinians – we have submitted a motion to this effect in the Bundestag.

The importance of this conference is shown by the difficulty we have in bringing about change from a parliamentary perspective. Much more extra-parliamentary resistance is needed against this war-mongering and arms build-up. The majority of the population in the Federal Republic of Germany is against this war policy, but the other parties continue to intensify the arms supplies, both to Zelensky and to Israel.

The fact that the BSW gives a voice to the majority of the population was demonstrated in the elections and the great electoral success.

The headlines about the coalition talks currently taking place in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg are coming thick and fast. For Brandenburg, a good compromise was found from the point of view of the BSW, which does not appear possible in Thuringia. Even if the deployment of medium-range and hypersonic missiles is not rejected, as the BSW demands, but only viewed critically, it is a small success, which is written down in the exploratory paper of Brandenburg between the SPD and the BSW. This, in turn, is heavily criticised in the press and in SPD circles.

Nevertheless, we will of course continue to fight for democracy, i.e. for the will of the majority of the people, to be respected. We will remain a pole in the resistance against the deployment of US medium-range missiles, as well as against the militarisation of all areas of society. For example, they want to reorganise the hospitals –  I am a member of the works council at a university hospital myself – ‘to make them fit for war’.

One thing is clear, and I would like to emphasise this, and that is that further arms deliveries will not end the war. The fact that these lines appear in the exploratory paper is, as I said, a great sign that the BSW can shift the political discourse. The press, including Spiegel, is calling it: ‘The SPD kneels before Wagenknecht – and submits to Putin’.

Whether the SPD in Brandenburg can withstand this pressure, which is being fueled by the government and the CDU and built up by almost all media, will become clear in the next four weeks of coalition negotiations.

Personally, I think the compromise is still too great a concession on the part of the BSW. So far, there has been no statement questioning the expansion of the Bundeswehr location in Holzdorf into the largest air base in eastern Germany. This also serves to prepare for war against Russia. However, we must first await the negotiations and then assess the result, whether it actually makes sense to enter government and whether there is no way to continue with the same old politics in Brandenburg.

Overall, however, it can be said that from a parliamentary point of view, it seems that nothing more is currently possible. That is why it is important that we also build up pressure on the governments in Europe through activities such as today’s European conference ‘Against the war, against the social war’, and organise it by expressing the will of the majority, by mobilising a force of resistance. Thank you for allowing me to address you here today.