Former mayor - Switch to the Wagenknecht camp: SPD politician Geisel settles accounts with comrades
Oops, it's 12.19 p.m. when an email makes political Berlin sit up and take notice. It's an invitation. Next Monday, the association "Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht" (BSW) wants to take the next step and present the official party foundation to the capital's press at noon. So far, so well known. However, the invitation also lists some of the future personnel with whom the renegade ex-leftist Wagenknecht obviously wants to lead her new party to success. Among them: former Left Party MP Fabio De Masi and Thomas Geisel.
The second appointment in particular is causing a stir. Geisel, 60, has been an SPD member for 40 years and was once Mayor of Düsseldorf (2014 - 2020). Despite being voted out of office, he was apparently flirting with running for mayor again. Why the change?
Shortly after the invitation to the press conference, a kind of letter of explanation circulated in SPD circles. Signed: "Your Thomas Geisel". The letter, dated this Thursday, is available to stern. It was first reported by the "Rheinische Post ". The letter, which is just over two A4 pages long, is a justification for the switch to the Wagenknecht camp - and a reckoning with the SPD.
"As you can imagine, this decision was not easy for me," Geisel writes in the letter. He had only recently been honored for his 40 years of SPD membership. "I said at the time that everyone could rely on me remaining a Social Democrat for the rest of my life." Nothing should change in this respect, Geisel continues. However, the following lines cast considerable doubt on this.
"Feeling at home in today's SPD"
According to Geisel, he does not just want to be a supporter in the background. He wants to lead the BSW list for the European elections in June this year, together with De Masi, he writes. It is not clear from the letter whether Geisel will also join the newly founded Wagenknecht party and therefore leave the SPD. However, the BSW candidacy is unlikely to be compatible with (his) SPD party membership. Zanda Martens, head of the SPD in Düsseldorf, is also of this opinion, as reported by the "Rheinische Post" . According to the newspaper, Martens said that no resignation had been received as of Thursday afternoon. However, if this does not happen and Geisel commits himself to the Wagenknecht party, expulsion proceedings will have to be initiated.
According to the letter, Geisel no longer sees his political home in the SPD anyway. Social democrats in the tradition of Willy Brandt or Helmut Schmidt have "become homeless in today's SPD", the letter states.
This is followed by a general reckoning from an obviously embittered comrade. Against an economic policy in which the Greens were left to "bully industry with bans, torture it with bureaucracy" and turn the admired "'Model Germany' of the Helmut Schmidt era" into a "restructuring case". Against social "good deeds, for example as part of the so-called 'double whammy'", which are "paid out on credit at the expense of future generations". Or against the SPD's asylum policy, which for decades has been an "ideologically driven policy of denying reality" because it would allow "uncontrolled immigration", for example.
Geisel is also harsh on his party's social and peace policy. He criticizes, for example, that the SPD-led federal government wants to make the country "ready for war" and is pursuing an "unprecedented arms build-up". Geisel emphasizes that Russia is waging a war in Ukraine that violates international law. "But Germany should not fuel it by supplying weapons, but rather help to end it as quickly as possible."
Geisel writes that he is convinced that those who are disappointed with the SPD will find a political home in the " Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance". Geisel is full of praise for the "economic policy with expertise" and "left-wing regulatory policy" that the BSW would stand for. He had observed Wagenknecht's political career for a long time and had met her several times in recent days. "Of course, everyone has to decide for themselves which path they want to take," writes Geisel. His decision has been made.
When asked by WDR, Geisel said that he would not comment on his commitment to BSW before Monday. According to the newspaper, the "Rheinische Post" also rebuffed Geisel and would not comment on the details beyond the letter before the upcoming appointment.
It seems that everything has been said for now.
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- Thomas Geisel, the former SPD mayor of Düsseldorf and an SPD member for 40 years, is listed as a future personnel member of Sahra Wagenknecht's BSW, causing a stir within the party.
- In response to the mounting attention, Geisel circulated a letter titled "Your Thomas Geisel" to SPD circles, explaining his decision to join the BSW and expressing his discontent with the current SPD, particularly its economic policy and asylum policy.
- Geisel's letter criticizes the SPD's economic policy, which he perceives as allowing the Greens to bully industry and creating an "unprecedented arms build-up," while criticizing the party's asylum policy as ideologically driven and denying reality.
- Addressing the Rheinische Post, Zanda Martens, head of the SPD in Düsseldorf, warned that if Geisel does not resign from the SPD before committing fully to the Wagenknecht party, expulsion proceedings would need to be initiated.
Source: www.stern.de
