Her followers name her Heidi. She is 36 years outdated. She talks a mile a minute. She has a tattoo of the Polish-German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg on her left arm and 1,000,000 followers throughout TikTok and Instagram. She was comparatively unknown in German politics till January, however as of Sunday, she’s a political drive.
Heidi Reichinnek is the girl who led the shock story of Germany’s parliamentary elections on Sunday: an nearly in a single day resurgence of Die Linke, which interprets as “The Left.”
A month in the past, Die Linke appeared prone to miss the 5 p.c voting cutoff wanted for events to earn seats in Germany’s Parliament, the Bundestag. On Sunday, it received almost 9 p.c of the vote and 64 seats within the Bundestag. “It was one in all solely 5 events to win a number of seats within the new Parliament, becoming a member of the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, the hard-right Various for Germany and the Inexperienced Occasion.
It was a outstanding comeback, powered by younger voters, excessive costs, a backlash towards conservative politicians, and a social-media-forward message that blended celebration and defiance.
At a time when German politicians are shifting to the appropriate on issues like immigration, and when the Various for Germany, or AfD, doubled its vote share from 4 years in the past, Ms. Reichinnek, the social gathering’s co-leader within the Bundestag, and Die Linke succeeded by channeling outrage from liberal, younger voters.
They pitched themselves as an aggressive examine on a extra conservative authorities, which is able to nearly definitely be led by Friedrich Merz, a businessman who has led the Christian Democrats to take a harsher line on border safety and migrants.
Mr. Merz’s ascent, and his selections in the midst of a marketing campaign that his social gathering led from the beginning, seem to have helped Ms. Reichinnek. In January, after a lethal knife assault by an immigrant in Bavaria, Mr. Merz pushed the Parliament to vote on a set of migration restrictions that would solely move with votes from the AfD — breaking a long time of prohibition in German politics towards partnering with events deemed excessive.
Many analysts hint Die Linke’s surge to Ms. Reichinnek’s livid — for the German Parliament, anyway — speech denouncing Mr. Merz and his measures.
“You simply mentioned that nobody out of your social gathering is reaching out to the AfD!” she shouted, in a speech that has since racked up almost seven million views on TikTok. “That’s proper! They’ve been fortunately embracing one another for a very long time already!”
Within the month that adopted, she referred to as the AfD a fascist social gathering and demanded that the Christian Democrats hearth Mr. Merz. She proposed strengthening immigrants’ rights, growing pensions and imposing stricter hire controls to assist folks battling postpandemic value will increase throughout Germany.
She additionally referred to as Die Linke the nation’s final nice firewall towards the far proper.
Die Linke coupled these calls with an aggressive social media outreach and party-like atmospheres at its rallies. It added greater than 30,000 new members within the final month of the marketing campaign, mentioned Götz Lange, the social gathering’s press officer.
Within the marketing campaign’s last week, Ms. Reichinnek traveled to the Berlin suburb of Treptow-Köpenick to speak to Ole Liebl, a queer influencer, about “techno and TikTok.” Afterward there was a celebration, with a DJ set, together with a techno combine with the voice of a famed left chief in Germany, Gregor Gysi.
The venue, an outdated brewery, was bursting on the seams: As a substitute of the allowed 400 visitors, round 1.200 folks confirmed up. Most of them had been techno lovers in black hoodies, folks with multicolored hair and T-shirts with “antifa” slogans written on them. They largely gave the impression to be of their early 20s.
There wasn’t sufficient house inside for everybody, so round 800 visitors adopted the occasion exterior and downstairs, on a livestream. Sporting a rust red-colored sweater and denims, Mr. Reichinnek appeared after a 30-minute delay, smiling and waving to the gang.
“Thanks for being right here,” she mentioned. “It’s loopy, I don’t even need to know what it seems to be like down there. Should you need assistance, attempt banging on the ceiling actually loudly, we’ll know.”
The group roared.
On Election Day, Die Linke shocked analysts and appeared to grab votes from the Greens and the Social Democrats, the social gathering of the incumbent chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and obtained new voters to end up. In Berlin’s central Mitte neighborhood, it received areas beforehand dominated by the Greens.
Based in 2007 and descended from the previous ruling social gathering of East Germany, Die Linke had not too long ago been higher recognized for its failures than any success.
Its most well-known chief, Sahra Wagenknecht, give up the social gathering to start out her personal — which blended some conventional left financial positions with a tough line on migration and an affinity for Russia.
That will have been a blessing, mentioned Sven Leunig, a political scientist on the College of Jena, a public analysis college in Germany. Ms. Wagenknecht’s positions had cut up the social gathering. “They had been torn,” Mr. Leunig mentioned, and voters didn’t prefer it.
The departure additionally allowed Die Linke to enlist new candidates and leaders. Different mainstream events continued to push acquainted faces and will have paid the value.
Daria Batalov, a 23-year-old nursing pupil from the central city of Hanau, mentioned she was received over by Ms. Reichinnek’s TikTok movies. “They actually spoke to me,” she mentioned, including, “And it was clear to me after just a few movies that, OK, my vote goes to Die Linke.”
Analysts mentioned Ms. Reichinnek and her social gathering additionally benefited from a backlash to Mr. Merz’s migration measures, and from fears concerning the rise of the far proper. “She had good luck,” mentioned Uwe Jun, a political scientist on the College of Trier.
Her supporters referred to as it one thing else: the rebirth of a motion. At Die Linke’s election-viewing social gathering in Berlin, the gang erupted into cheers when early exit polls flashed throughout the display screen. Jan van Aken, a celebration chief, was greeted onstage with confetti.
“The Left lives,” he mentioned.
Adam Sella contributed from Berlin and Sam Gurwitt from Hanau.
