Sahra Wagenknecht facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sahra Wagenknecht
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Wagenknecht in 2023
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| Leader of Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht |
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| Assumed office 8 January 2024 Serving with Amira Mohamed Ali
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| General Secretary | Christian Leye | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy | Shervin Haghsheno | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Position established | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leader of Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht in the Bundestag |
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| Assumed office 11 December 2023 |
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| Whip | Jessica Tatti | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy | Klaus Ernst | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Position established | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leader of the Opposition | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 12 October 2015 – 24 October 2017 Serving with Dietmar Bartsch
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| Preceded by | Gregor Gysi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leader of The Left in the Bundestag | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 12 October 2015 – 12 November 2019 Serving with Dietmar Bartsch
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| Whip | Jan Korte | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy | Sevim Dağdelen Caren Lay |
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| Preceded by | Gregor Gysi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Amira Mohamed Ali | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
Sarah Wagenknecht
16 July 1969 Jena, Bezirk Gera, East Germany (now Thuringia, Germany) |
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| Political party | Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (2023–) |
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| Other political affiliations |
The Left (2007–2023) Party of Democratic Socialism (1989–2007) Socialist Unity Party (1989) |
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| Spouses |
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| Residence | Merzig-Silwingen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Education | University of Groningen TU Chemnitz |
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| Occupation |
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Sahra Wagenknecht (born Sarah Wagenknecht; German: [ˌzaːʁa ˈvaːɡŋ̍ˌknɛçt]; 16 July 1969) is a German politician, economist, author, and publicist. Since 2009 she has been a member of the Bundestag, where until 2023 she represented The Left. From 2015 to 2019, she served as that party's parliamentary co-chair. With a small team of allies, she left the party on 23 October 2023 to found her own party in 2024, Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, to contest elections onwards.
Wagenknecht became a prominent member of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) from the early 1990s. After the foundation of The Left, she became a leading member of one of the party's most left-wing factions as leader of the Communist Platform. She has been a controversial figure throughout her career due to her hardline and populist stances, statements about East Germany, immigration and refugees (which moved away from traditional antiracism), and her political movement Aufstehen. From 2020 onward Wagenknecht was less active in parliament, but often interviewed by German media. She is not a member of any parliamentary committee.
Since 2021 she had openly considered forming her own party, due to growing and enduring conflicts within the Left Party and at the end of September 2023 she formed BSW – Reason and Justice political party in 2024.
Early life
Wagenknecht was born on 16 July 1969 in the East German city of Jena. Her father is Iranian and her mother, who worked for a state-run art distributor, is German. Her father disappeared in Iran when she was a child. She was cared for primarily by her grandparents until 1976, when she and her mother moved to East Berlin. While in Berlin, she became a member of the Free German Youth (FDJ). She completed her Abitur exams in 1988 and joined the (then ruling) Socialist Unity Party (SED) in early 1989.
From 1990, Wagenknecht studied philosophy and New German Literature as an undergraduate in Jena and Berlin, completing mandatory coursework, but did not write a thesis as she "could not find support for her research aims at the East Berlin Humboldt University". She then enrolled as a philosophy student at the University of Groningen, completing her studies and earning an MA in 1996 for a thesis on the young Karl Marx's interpretation of Hegel, supervised by Hans Heinz Holz and published as a book in 1997. From 2005 until 2012 she completed a PhD dissertation at the chair of Microeconomics at TU Chemnitz, on "The Limits of Choice: Saving Decisions and Basic Needs in Developed Countries", awarded with the grade magna cum laude in the German system and subsequently published by the Campus Verlag.
See also
In Spanish: Sahra Wagenknecht para niños
