Icon: enlarge
New in Berlin: the newly elected Left Federal Chairwoman Susanne Hennig-Wellsow
Photo: Reiner Zensen / imago images / Reiner Zensen
For a possible formation of a government with the SPD and the Greens, it is one of the decisive questions: How is the left doing with foreign deployments of the Bundeswehr?
For years the party's credo has been: German soldiers have no place in foreign countries.
The new party chairman of the Left, Susanne Hennig-Wellsow, keeps that on record.
After an interview with the journalist Tilo Jung on Thursday, however, a completely different question arises.
Does the top left even know what stakes it is against?
In any case, in the excerpt from Jung's YouTube format »Young and naive«, which has now been shared thousands of times on social media, the new party leader Hennig-Wellsow gives the impression that she has little idea what she and her party are opposing so rigorously.
"I have to honestly say that I don't have all of them in view individually," she replies when Jung asks him to find out which missions the Bundeswehr is currently on abroad.
Jung continues to drill, with every demand Hennig-Wellsow gets more swimming.
Devastating appearance
When asked if she had any idea how many combat missions the Bundeswehr is currently doing, Hennig-Wellsow only replied tersely: "No."
But then she is not entirely sure whether the withdrawal from the Hindu Kush has already been decided.
"It was decided once," she evades, but that is "obviously called into question again."
In fact, the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan is about to be extended for 1,300 armed soldiers of the Bundeswehr.
When Jung continues to drill, Hennig-Wellsow wants to contact an employee who is sitting in the room away from the camera.
In the end, she is convinced that there must be other combat missions by the Bundeswehr besides Afghanistan: "There are definitely more."
It's a devastating gig.
The new party leader seems completely clueless and haphazard about a topic that is so important for her party.
In fact, there are likely to be many federal politicians who cannot enumerate by heart which deployment the Bundeswehr is currently in.
In 2016, the NDR spontaneously asked some members of the Bundestag, who at least even vote on it.
Including today's SPD leader Saskia Esken, the CDU MPs Marian Wendt and Konstantin von Notz (Greens).
None of them shone with detailed knowledge.
Hennig-Wellsow has just come from a government in Thuringia that is fighting the pandemic and has to maintain a complicated coalition structure, tolerated by the CDU.
Presumably she could pray down the Thuringian budget, she is new in Berlin.
But there is another problem: Hennig-Wellsow's aggressive demeanor.
On Monday, shortly after her election, she launched a frontal attack on the CDU, including a Twitter campaign.
In a guest post for the "Welt", she railed against the "exhausted" ruling party CDU.
Then, after five days in office, she sat down in a notoriously challenging interview format that has already stumbled some politicians such as Robert Habeck.
Risk for top candidate?
Her brisk assumption of office at the top left brought her a lot of attention in a short time - whether you use this is another matter.
In the first left parliamentary group meeting this week, critical inquiries came from individual MPs as to whether the SPD and the Greens would also be attacked in the future.
Left MP Alexander Neu criticized Hennig-Wellsow publicly on Twitter for Tilo Jung's video snippets: The term "combat mission" was not defined at all.
“So a reason not to lean that far out of the window.
Unfortunately, that's exactly what Susanne does, ”he writes.
Hennig-Wellsow finally defended himself via Twitter: "There is only one correct answer to the question of how many combat missions there should be: zero," she wrote.
Anyone can google that by the way.
For Hennig-Wellsow, the appearance is also a problem because the left has not yet clarified who will take over the top candidacy for the federal election.
While co-boss Janine Wissler is probably set, there is still no agreement in the East German reformer camp.
In addition to Hennig-Wellsow, parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch could take over.
The main argument of its supporters: Hennig-Wellsow has too little experience in Berlin, the 62-year-old Bartsch should be put at Wissler's side, also to give the older voters continuity.
The Bartsch supporters should feel confirmed by Hennig-Wellsow's appearance at Tilo Jung.
Icon: The mirror
