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The new chairmen of the left: Janine Wissler and Susanne Hennig-Wellsow
Photo: CHRISTIAN MARQUARDT / POOL / EPA
For a moment, Susanne Hennig-Wellsow's voice began to tremble when she said a few words shortly after being elected chairwoman.
She wanted to thank Bodo Ramelow, the Prime Minister of Thuringia, who ruled successfully.
It is a farewell for her because she is leaving a "team", said the parliamentary group leader from Erfurt.
"Now the Thuringian Way is also finding its way into federal politics."
The Thuringian Way?
Die Linke has been the head of government in the Erfurt State Chancellery since 2014.
The SPD and the Greens are small parties, and the CDU has mutated from the undisputed governing party into a meek cooperation partner of the left.
Hennig-Wellsow's announcement should be understood as a warning to the competitors in Berlin.
Here two successful election campaigners come on stage - and one of them absolutely wants to rule, as Hennig-Wellsow had repeatedly emphasized in recent weeks.
But Berlin is still quite a long way from Erfurt conditions.
The only government option for the left would be an alliance with the SPD and the Greens, which currently still ranks 42 percent and would therefore have realistic chances if the three parties still catch up.
Signal against blue helmet operations
But at its digital party conference on Friday and Saturday, the Left sent a rather mixed signal as to whether it really wanted to.
The more government-skeptical co-partner from Hesse, Janine Wissler, received the better result than her friend from Thuringia with 84 percent.
The clearest message was given in the election of the deputies.
Defense policy spokesman Matthias Höhn was punished by the delegates and failed in a runoff election against Tobias Pflüger from Baden-Württemberg.
Höhn had recently caused a stir in the party.
In a paper he questions whether the leftist dogma against blue helmet operations involving the armed forces should be given up.
There was massive criticism of this, and competitor Pflüger once again made the opposing position clear.
Negotiations had taken place in the background and it was actually called by several regional associations to help Höhn into office for peace within the party.
That went really wrong, probably also because Höhn reaffirmed his position in his application speech.
"Cum-Ex-Scholz" and "Armament Baerbock"
But what happens if the party should actually vote on a coalition agreement after the federal election and Höhn's compromise proposals are back on the table?
The dispute is likely to continue.
Otherwise, the left was professional.
Visually, it wasn't quite as pretty as the CDU at its digital party congress, but the delegates were more visible.
Here too, the critics took advantage of government participation as an opportunity to express their views.
Some sat in the shared kitchen, others in the bedroom or in front of the Karl Marx poster.
Lucy Redler, for example, pleaded for perseverance in the opposition: "Let's wait until we really have left majorities." Neither the SPD nor the Greens are left enough to work with them.
Angela Bankert, a competitor of Sahra Wagenknecht in North Rhine-Westphalia, even warned against "Cum-Ex-Scholz" and "Armament Baerbock".
The government's critics are a minority in the party, but they are the louder.
On Saturday evening, the party congress was paralyzed by some self-promoters who messed up the party congress with procedural proposals.
The generation change, for which Wissler and Hennig-Wellsow stand, also took place in parts of the second row.
Many of those who are looking for seats on the 44-strong executive committee come from left-wing youth or want to brush aside the old trench warfare in their speeches.
When in doubt, commitment to climate protection is more important to them than the question of deployments abroad.
Two activists from "Fridays for Future" sent greetings during a break in the polls.
Wagenknecht confidants fail
A flaw was the farewell to ex-chairmen Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger, which was scheduled for Friday evening.
The flowers were not handed over until 10 p.m., when many spectators must have switched off long ago.
Overall, however, the party congress went smoothly.
Now the next stage is on: The top candidates for the federal election must be clarified.
"We are conducting a unified election campaign" says the strategy paper.
And: "We come together and speak with one voice." But whether it will come is questionable.
The different wings want to be represented.
Kipping was relatively open in her speech.
But she should only have chances if you should opt for a broader top team.
Classic would be a top duo, optionally with the parliamentary group or the new party chairman.
The old reformer camp around parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch could insist that he plays a role.
The party congress then made one thing clear: the candidates who were among Sahra Wagenknecht's confidants were left behind.
Only Ali Al-Dailami was able to narrowly assert himself as deputy.
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