AfD leader Weidel claims Left Party wants to shoot the rich

Alternative for Germany (AfD) leader Alice Weidel has claimed that Die Linke (the Left Party) will “shoot the rich and expropriate capitalists”.

Appearing live on ZDF television on Sunday, when elections were held in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the AfD leader spoke about the Berlin vote.

Weidel argued that the Left Party had become the strongest element in Berlin “because of the CDU’s ‘firewall’ policy”.

Weidel then asserted that the Left Party wanted “to expropriate, to shoot the rich, to pressure capitalists through rent caps; in other words, to implement elements of planned socialism”.

ZDF presenter Shakuntala Banerjee appeared taken aback and, stating that this claim needed to be “verified”, asked: “‘Wants to shoot the rich’?”

In fact, Weidel appears to be pointing to the words of Berlin member Sandra L. at an event organised by the Left Party in 2020. At the time, a video containing her remarks circulated online.

The incident occurred at a party strategy conference held in Kassel. While the debate was actually on energy policy, the Left Party member said: “The energy transition is necessary even after the revolution. And even if we shoot the top 1% of the rich, we will still want to heat our homes.”

The Left Party’s then co-chair Bernd Riexinger, who was present at the time, made a joke about forced labour and replied: “I just wanted to add: we won’t shoot them; we will make them do useful work.”

Sandra L. later retracted her words in a statement to dpa, saying: “This completely contradicts my political views; I am disgusted by violence against people.”

Riexinger also later expressed regret for not rejecting the comment “immediately and categorically”.

No election manifesto of the Left Party contains a call for the “execution” of the rich or the super-rich. The party states that it is committed to the rule of law and the “free democratic basic order”.