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The latest tattoo on Heidi Reichinnek’s lower right arm reads “Angry Woman”. A “present to myself”, she says, after the unexpected return to the German parliament of her party, Die Linke (The Left), in February’s elections.
Months before the vote, it had been widely predicted the far-left party, successor to the east German communists, would be decimated. But the naysayers were proved wrong: Die Linke won nearly 9% of the vote, an increase of almost 4% on the previous election, giving them a healthy 64 seats in the new Bundestag.
Much of the credit for their upswing has gone to Reichinnek, who in the run-up to the vote gave a fulminating speech in which she admonished the incoming chancellor, Friedrich Merz, for having used the votes of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) to try to push through migration reform.
“Don’t give up, but fight back, resist fascism … We’ll all take to the streets … To the barricades!” the 36-year-old urged fellow MPs and those watching at home. The speech, says Reichinnek, was spontaneous – “I quickly scribbled some things down but then couldn’t read my scrawl” – but proved dynamite.
Shared on social media almost 30m times in just five days, it became the most widely watched speech in the history of the Bundestag and catapulted Reichinnek – who polls show is the country’s favourite female politician - to a level of political stardom, particularly among young people, that just months previously the then beleaguered party could have only dreamed of.
“It earned us a lot of support. People said I spoke to them from the heart, but also lots of others said things like: ‘What’s that hysterical old bint screaming about?’ – hence the tattoo. “My ‘welcome back’ and ‘Bundestag tattoo’,” she says.
(The qualification is necessary for Reichinnek has others: one of her Marxist idol, Rosa Luxemburg, another of Nefertiti, the ancient Egyptian queen, donning a gas mask, and a “zoo” of animals including an otter, raven, cat and snake. “Because being an MP – in this prison and bureaucratic complex,” Reichinnek says, pointing to her surroundings in a room off her Bundestag office, “I have no time to have pets.”)
Germany, Europe’s biggest economy and stalwart if embattled democracy, is preparing for a new era: Merz, the leader of the CDU/CSU conservative alliance, is expected to be sworn in as chancellor in early May. He will lead a coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats of the outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in what is expected to be a tempestuous parliament where the far right will be the leading opposition force and hold an unprecedented amount of power.
Reichinnek sees the role of her smaller party as crucial, both in keeping at bay the AfD (which now stands, for the first time ever, neck and neck with the conservatives in the polls) and holding Merz to account. At the same time Die Linke does not want to be portrayed as a disruptor, but as a collaborator on important issues “with all democratic parties, where we agree with them”, she says.
With a combined total of 216 seats, Die Linke and the AfD have a so-called blocking minority in the new Bundestag: the new government will be too weak to make up the two-thirds majority needed to make any changes to the constitution. But Reichinnek – whose trademark red lipstick is an anti-fascist nod to the many women who “during the Nazi era wore [it] … because Hitler did not like makeup” – swiftly rejects any suggestion the parties could collaborate.
“We’re very familiar with the ‘horseshoe theory’ which attempts to equate left and right,” she says. “But we have nothing to do with that party. We don’t work with or vote with the AfD. It’s rightwing extremist. We’re leftwing. It’s part of our DNA to be anti-fascist and we will fight against it at every turn, in parliament and on the streets.”
For her, the obvious way to fight the far-right populists is to create “good social policy”. “It’s been shown time and again in so many studies that people whose personal and economic circumstances are deteriorating are more likely to vote for rightwing extremists. This means that strong social policies are needed to counter the AfD.”
“Everything”, she adds, has been run down over the past few decades. “Public services have been continually dismantled. Wages and pensions have increased far too little; they have actually been devalued, while rents have risen. Hospitals are closing, schools are decaying, bridges are collapsing. Of course, people are frustrated. That’s no excuse for voting for a party, but it is definitely a reason that must be addressed. That’s our first approach.”
Deeply critical of the new government’s coalition agreement, calling it “irresponsible” and “fainthearted”, Reichinnek says Merz’s plans for a massive rearmament through historical spending and debt reforms, pushed through the old parliament at the 11th hour, have “no clear concept” on how a multi-billion euro infrastructure fund is to be spent.
A big sticking point with a fair few would-be Die Linke voters is that the party is against the further delivery of weapons to Ukraine. Critics say this is a disturbing remnant of the party’s pro-Russian allegiance, a suggestion Reichinnek rejects. Die Linke is “very much on the side of Kyiv”, she insists, but the approach to ending the war must change and include not more weaponry but more pressure on Vladimir Putin.
“It only works if you force Putin to the negotiating table. He won’t come there voluntarily. We’re saying: there’s a whole lot between supplying weapons and doing nothing,” she says.
Domestically, she fears that Merz’s promised cuts to social welfare spending to finance rearmament will come at the expense of social cohesion and will ultimately drive more voters to the AfD.
Born in a village in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to an electrician father and chemical worker mother, Reichinnek was just 19-months-old when the Berlin Wall fell. Her formative political experience took place when she was a member of the city council and a youth worker in Osnabrück, in north-west Germany, where she lives.
Referred to as Germany’s TikTok queen, whose reels on everything from domestic violence and contraception to rent and migration have long earned her supporters, particularly among young female voters, she joined Die Linke in 2015 and became its parliamentary group spokesperson last year.
Every time she approaches the podium in the Bundestag, she typically bats off with good humour jeering cries from the CDU and AfD benches in particular: TV cameras often show Merz and his colleagues rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. She admits she has had to grow a thick skin to cope with these critics, who deem her too “woke” and too mouthy, and who say her “leftist activist look” is contrived to appeal to a particular youth demographic.
Her response? That her politics is based on people’s real concerns, citing her fight against rent extortion and her campaign for the legalisation of abortion (while rarely punished, it remains illegal in Germany, except for specific circumstances including when a woman’s life is in danger or she is a victim of rape). She has had the same fringe-defined hairstyle “forever” and no one advises her on what she wears or what she says. She counters her critics bluntly with the question: “The bottom line is, do you act out of solidarity with others, or are you an arsehole?”
The message is getting through – at least to a certain group of people. Under her guidance, the party has seen an astonishing revival among Germany’s youth: at the election, Die Linke proved the most popular choice for voters aged between 18 and 24. Her wish to make the rich pay their fair share has been the inspiration for a track by rappers MC Smook and Fruity Luke, and in her office there is an overflowing box of friendship bracelets she has received from fans. Among her trademark items of attire, they bear slogans such as “Do it for us” and “Only the Young”.
Since first entering parliament in 2021, she has gained a reputation as the fastest-talking MP, leading to the coining of the phrase “a Reichinnek” as a benchmark of political temperament. Her way of speaking, Die Zeit recently pointed out, “has peak speeds of approximately 200 words a minute” – considerably faster than her parliamentary colleagues.
“Useful for TikTok”, she admits, as well as in the debating chamber “when we’ve only ever had two or three minutes to put our point across, so it’s really paid off”. Younger people like it, she says, “because they say, they don’t have to listen at double speed. But when I’m on TV, older people often say that I talk too fast.”
Will Merz’s Germany move at the speed Reichinnek thinks is necessary to save it from the economic doldrums and political peril? The answer is unclear. For now, she is focused on building on her party’s unexpected momentum and girding herself for the fights to come.
She recently attended a Die Linke meeting in Osnabrück. “There were lots of young people among new members there who are keen to make a change,” she says. “That’s what matters most to me.”
