Die Linke’s surge was propelled by a compelling promise: for voters to have the freedom to stay in their city. This is how to fight back against the far right

The German leftwing party Die Linke won the state elections in Berlin on 20 September. It’s unclear whether the party will be able to form a coalition, appoint its lead candidate Elif Eralp as mayor, and follow through on her core campaign promise: to socialise the housing stock of the city’s biggest real-estate companies. A barrage of accusations started to circulate immediately after the results came in. Even by the standards of present-day polarisation, the pitch was extreme.

On the basis of one leaked chat and one rapper’s performance, the party was described as schmoozing with criminal clans and endangering the lives of Berlin Jews. Accusations of antisemitism prompted the Greens and the SPD – potential coalition partners – to question any potential cooperation, while “alt-right” opinion-makers suggested that “Hamas and Hezbollah” had won the elections, or that the German Democratic Republic (the old East Germany) was about to come back. Alice Weidel of the rightwing AfD alleged that Die Linke intended to “shoot the rich”.

The philosopher, who has died aged 96, was often caricatured as a consensus-seeking liberal. But his belief in the need for shared understanding had a radical underpinning

Despite its canonical name, the Frankfurt School is not a school. It is, at least according to my former teacher, the critical theorist Rahel Jaeggi, a constellation. For a century, this scholarly constellation has pursued the intellectual endeavour of critique. Critique here is not the “thumbs down” or “blocking” exercised on social media. It is the wild aspiration to describe reality in a way that transforms it.

Jürgen Habermas, who died on 14 March 2026 at the age of 96, was a fixed star in this constellation. He set the compass for several generations of mostly German and North American thinkers. Habermas was incredibly prolific, with more than 40 books to his name, and very charismatic. There was an intensity, a concentration to Habermas’s thought and dialogue that his writings convey only poorly. The thundering polemics he brought to public debates also seem a far cry from the consensus-oriented discourse ethics he is known for.

Eva von Redecker is a German philosopher and nonfiction writer

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.