How migration became the rallying cry of the German far-Left
She has always been a familiar face to the German public, cropping up constantly on TV news debates and even taking part in a cookery show where she made îles flottantes.
Now Sahra Wagenknecht , a stalwart of the German Left, is stirring up trouble in politics with a new party that could become a major player in Germany's next general election.
Set up in January this year, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) combines old-school Left-wing economics with a deeply populist streak on migration, as well a distinctly Kremlin-friendly attitude towards Ukraine .
It could be a dangerous recipe for Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, as many supporters of his centre-Left SPD party are disillusioned with his military support for Kyiv and failure to tighten up the country's border security.
More importantly, it reflects a major shift at the heart of German politics: after decades of bland but predictable leadership, voters are abandoning the centre en masse and embracing colourful populist figures.
With the BSW polling around 10 per cent nationwide, about the same as the Green faction in Mr Scholz's coalition, it could potentially be a kingmaker in coalition talks after the German general elections in September 2025.
It is also set to perform well in this weekend's state elections in Brandenburg where, along with the hard-Right AfD , it is striking a chord with war-weary East Germans.
Conservatism and Marxism
Born in East Germany under the communist GDR, Ms Wagenknecht was raised by her German mother after being abandoned by their Iranian father.
In her early career she was a member of the GDR's ruling party, the Sociality Unity Party (SED), where her blend of social conservatism and Marxist economics went down well with her decrepit communist elders.
After the unification of Germany, she ended up in Die Linke, German's hard-Left party . But allies say she never felt truly at home there due to her scepticism towards mass migration, which ultimately led to her departure.
"Many politicians have chosen not to speak about migration... but Sahra Wagnknecht kept talking about it, and criticised her party, Die Linke, about it," said Steffen Quasebarth, a newly elected BSW MP in the Thuringia state parliament.
"Her criticism got ever stronger, and it led to a rift, and she ended up deciding to form her own party to address that precise problem."
Unfortunately for Die Linke, she took many of the party's brightest stars with her, although none outshine her as the most recognisable face of the new party.
At a rally this month in Frankfurt an der Oder, ahead of the Brandenburg elections, Ms Wagenknecht turned up 45 minutes late and apologised to the crowds, blaming a traffic jam near Berlin.
'Why have energy prices exploded?'
The small border city is connected by a bridge to the town of Słubice in Poland, one of Ukraine's staunchest supporters. And the rally itself was held on a stage right next to Frankfurt an der Oder's Friedensglocke (peace bell), a relic of the post-war border treaty between the former GDR and Poland.
The crowd had already been fired up by lead candidate Robert Crumbach, who complained that migration had overwhelmed Brandenburg's hospitals and schools.
When Ms Wagenknecht took the stage – after a rendition of the anti-war German pop anthem "99 Red Balloons" – she wasted little time getting onto Russia's war in Ukraine, accusing the German government of hypocrisy on energy politics and its stance on other conflicts in the Middle East.
"Why have our energy prices exploded? Because we have a government that sees itself as the moral master of the world," she said. "And their view is that as they have the loudest morality and hypermorality, we can no longer buy the evil Russian gas and oil. So instead, we get the good gas from Qatar, an Islamist dictatorship that funds Hamas."
She added: "It's true, the world is complicated, there are many wars, but other European countries live in the same world, and despite this their economies are growing, they are investing, they are not closing their industries, and the prices are not as explosive as ours are."
There is also a populist jab at Scholz's coalition, which includes the Greens, whom she claims are too busy "sipping oak milk macchiatos with their friends" in gated communities to worry about the concerns of normal voters.
'She brings change'
Several hundred East Germans had turned up for the rally, mainly old Die Linke voters who crossed to BSW with Ms Wagenknecht.
"She brings imagination, she brings change, she brings energy, and she's a good woman," said Veronika, 65. "It's time we have a change of leadership."
Lydia, 72, a retired schoolteacher, said: "We have the impression that Scholz has said too much and done too little. People here are very unhappy with his performance. We've also experienced so many Ukrainian refugees coming here and we just don't have the funds for them... we are waiting a long time for doctors appointments, and there are no places left in the schools."
To her critics, Ms Wagenknecht's foreign policy, which sees Germany as being pushed around by the United States and dragged into wars against its best interests, is dangerously close to making her a pro-Putin fifth columnist.
She was humiliated in February 2022, when she confidently predicted on a TV panel show that Vladimir Putin would never dare to invade Ukraine – shortly before he did precisely that.
She then tried to save face, criticising Putin over the invasion, but has since slipped back into a more cynical attitude towards Russia, suggesting that he is no worse than US leaders when it comes to warmongering.
"She's on the very pro-Russian end of the spectrum, a Left-wing populist who grew up in East Germany and thinks Marxism and communism is superior to capitalist democracy," said Rafael Loss, a German politics and European security analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
"While she at times is critical of Putin, she has always added a big 'what if', at the end, usually pointing to US failures or trying to minimise the damage that Russia has produced," he added.
