Sahra Wagenknecht has been on the political stage in Germany for over 30 years. She has undoubtedly become an icon of the left – albeit a polarizing one. Some adore her, others despise her. For Sahra Wagenknecht has always remained true to herself, despite all the changes she has undergone over the last three decades. A loyalty that many also describe as “uncompromising.” This makes her an outsider.

But it seems that Sahra Wagenknecht always benefits enormously from this outsider position. She never leaves the political stage; she always comes back even after the most severe setbacks. Her latest coup: Sahra Wagenknecht has left the party DIE LINKE and founded her own party, “BÜNDNIS SAHRA WAGENKNECHT” (BSW). How can the Sahra Wagenknecht phenomenon be deciphered? And will she be successful with her own party?

In the first few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Sahra Wagenknecht became the most famous face of the SED successor party PDS. But even as the youngest member of the party’s executive committee, she became a disruptive factor. She is unyielding and swims against the tide. Sahra Wagenknecht does not distance herself from Stalinism or the Berlin Wall and wishes for a reformed GDR. Her outsider position quickly manifests itself. She is expelled from the party executive but continues to find supporters, especially among those who feel left behind by politics. Then as now, the outsider Sahra Wagenknecht rallies behind her all those who feel marginalized. They see her as the politician who speaks from the heart because she herself is also marginalized.

Sahra Wagenknecht is the child of an East German student and an Iranian student from West Berlin. Her father is politically active and is one of the opponents of the Shah of Persia. He returns to Iran when Sahra is three years old. What Sahra Wagenknecht has left of her father is a painful gap and the certainty of being different, of looking different, of being alone. Today, Sahra Wagenknecht says of herself that it is perhaps also because of this experience that she can stand being alone with her opinion.

She repeatedly goes against the majority opinion. Even when her party, the PDS, was in a tailspin, she doubted that a merger with the WASG, founded by Oskar Lafontaine, could be a salvation. In the end, the party „Die LINKE“ was founded in 2005 and Sahra Wagenknecht turned her opposition to political heavyweight Oskar Lafontaine into love. The unlikely couple have been in the spotlight ever since and the outsider Sahra Wagenknecht has finally become a media star. It is another step that brings her closer to her own project – the solo project “Wagenknecht.”

Her solo efforts are becoming Sahra Wagenknecht’s trademark. She accepts the division of the Left Party for this. And it turns out that it is the crises that make her strong – the refugee crisis in 2015, the coronavirus crisis in 2020, the war against Ukraine in 2022. Sahra Wagenknecht has a keen sense of which messages resonate in uncertain times. She argues against migration policy, questions the coronavirus measures, and believes that it is not Putin, but above all NATO, that is to blame for the Russian attack on Ukraine. Quite a few people therefore accuse her of being a populist who primarily wants to win votes from the right-wing political fringe.

The idea of founding her own party has long been an obvious one. Now, after more than 30 years as an eternal outsider on the political stage, she has dared to take this risky step.

But the question, as Kevin Kühnert (SPD) puts it, will be whether this project is a left-wing force. After all, Sahra Wagenknecht, who was once regarded as a communist icon of the left, no longer believes in the labels “left” and “right.”

We want to find out what really drives the politician Sahra Wagenknecht. How has she changed, developed, and stylized herself since 1989? What political changes, events, and developments in Germany and Europe have shaped her over the last 30 years? We take a look at Sahra Wagenknecht’s biography, reflecting three decades of German history. Now that she has embarked on her solo project of forming her own party, we also ask whether she will be successful in the 2024 election year. What is behind the Sahra Wagenknecht phenomenon and what makes her one of Germany’s most controversial political voices?