30 April 2026

This is Sahra Wagenknecht’s newsletter. In it, I provide regular updates on my activities and current political issues.

The federal government has approved the draft budget for 2027. This includes the largest military build-up since 1945 and shameless debt accumulation. 200 billion euros in new debt – almost entirely for new weapons and the militarisation of Germany – is a wrecking ball for our country’s future. Under Merz, interest payments alone will rise by 50 billion euros every year: that is a pure waste of taxpayers’ money! Before the election, Merz said: “The challenges we face can be solved without additional taxes and without new debt.”  Merz will go down in history as the ‘lying chancellor’ who led the country ever further into decline. In an interview with WELT TV, I discuss why the budget proposed by the CDU/CSU and SPD is a complete disaster and why the Merz government has no plan to tackle the economic crisis.

Core Values Commission established

The BSW’s Core Values Commission has been established. I am delighted that we have succeeded in recruiting many renowned and expert figures from the worlds of academia and culture as members. With the Core Values Commission, we will have a real trump card up our sleeve and a highly competent body at our side, which will support the BSW in sharpening its profile once again and closing the glaring representational gap in the German party system. In a joint statement, the members of the Core Values Commission explain why the BSW urgently needs them politically and why they wish to advise our party on important policy issues in future.

Stop the arms race!

Germany’s military spending continues to skyrocket: last year, the federal government spent a staggering 24 per cent more on weapons, totalling 97 billion euros. According to the Swedish peace research institute SIPRI, this puts Germany in fourth place worldwide; only the nuclear powers – the USA, China and Russia – spend more on the military. Instead of arguing over where to make the deepest cuts to citizens’ incomes to finance this madness, the CDU/CSU and SPD should impose a moratorium on rearmament and freeze military spending at 2021 levels. That would be entirely sufficient to equip the Bundeswehr adequately for national defence. In this legislative period alone, a total of 276 billion euros could be saved. This would solve all budgetary problems in one fell swoop and render the planned cuts affecting families, pensioners and children unnecessary. Furthermore, substantial funds would be freed up to finally tackle the truly important tasks. Even a fraction of this money would be enough to renovate all the dilapidated schools in Germany.

Affordable housing for Germany!

It’s beyond belief: whilst there is a shortage of 1.4 million affordable homes in Germany, the Merz government has committed to building “affordable social housing” in Ukraine. What’s next: cycle paths in Kyiv? Enough is enough! The federal government must finally address the problems facing its own citizens! The fact that almost one in four tenants in Germany is now at risk of poverty is testament to the total failure of the CDU/CSU and SPD’s housing policy. Instead of pouring vast sums of taxpayers’ money into corrupt Ukraine, the federal government should urgently boost public and non-profit housing construction in Germany! We need a rent cap for Germany and a payment freeze for Ukraine!

Dictionary of War Readiness

The militarisation of Germany is being driven by a political and media campaign designed to accustom us to war as the new normal. The author Leo Ensel has published a “Dictionary of War Readiness”, in which he takes a critical look at the ubiquitous jargon of war preparedness. In this essay, which is well worth reading, he describes what motivated him and why he dedicates the text to the younger generation, who would be forcibly conscripted and used as cannon fodder in the event of an emergency.

Please find below the article in which Leo Ensel presents his book ‘Dictionary of War Readiness’ mentioned by Sahra Wagenknecht:

Polishing Words – On the ‘Dictionary of War Readiness’

22 April 2026By: Leo Enselin General, Media Criticism, Military, Politics, Reviews

(Ed.) Our regular contributor Leo Ensel has published a book in which he critically examines the jargon of military preparedness currently wafting towards us from all corners and exposes it with peace-loving audacity. In this text, he describes what motivated him and what he aims to achieve, how he went about it and what conclusions he has reached.

“I’ll leave the polishing of words to you,” said the half-philosopher. “I care only for the truth.”

“Poor wretch!” cried the philosopher.

“Why, poor wretch?”

“Because now you must do without both.”

“Both?”

“Indeed. Even the truth.”

“Which one?”

“The truth about the truth.”

“And that is?”

“That it only shines through polished windows.”

(Günther Anders)

‘Polishing words’ – never is this more important than in times of war and pre-war! By now, it is long overdue. If only for hygienic reasons. The language is becoming more radical at a breathtaking pace; the tone grows shriller by the day. Whereas yesterday, according to Boris Pistorius, we were ‘no longer in complete peace’, just five days later Chancellor Merz dispensed with the soothing little word ‘complete’. Ursula von der Leyen still speaks, moderately by her standards, of a ‘fight’, whilst on the talk shows – ‘Five Chairs, One Opinion’ – there is incessant drivel about the ‘grey’ or ‘hybrid’ war that Russia (pardon: Putin!) is allegedly waging against us. Yet they are all merely panting after the avant-gardist with the class-prefect demeanour: Annalena Baerbock, who announced in clear German as early as 24 January 2023: “We are fighting a war against Russia!”

The ultimate goal of all propaganda – the dehumanisation of the opponent – has, in any case, long since been achieved; one need only look at the attributes with which, for example, the Russian president has been labelled by our mainstream media for years.

For the transformation of our entire society towards “war readiness”, the civil-military integration under “Operation Plan Germany” – currently still taking place secretly behind the scenes – is merely half the battle. In parallel, a ‘change of mentality’ or ‘new mindset’, a ‘shift in thinking’ or ‘cultural reprogramming’ is being openly and unabashedly demanded.

One means of implementing this as elegantly as possible is language. It is a truism that language shapes consciousness and thus, indirectly, our actions. How this happens, how we are all – more and more every day – to be accustomed to the unthinkable and reprogrammed as quietly as possible, is demonstrated – through the ‘polishing of words’ – by my ‘Dictionary of War Readiness’.

Woke Militarism

And this is sorely needed. For the new militarism presents itself, not least, as smart, gender-equitable and TikTok-compatible. Spiked helmets and a barking Prussian tone of command are out. The postmodern force must be “woke & capable of self-defence” – inclusive of all minorities in our colourful, diverse society. The path to the (possibly final) war is not being forged by the clang of sabres, but by “strolling in trainers” – in the end, perhaps no longer following the German flag, but the rainbow flag.

And this has implications for language. Whilst the hardcore rhetoric (“will to fight”, “always an enemy”, “second Hitler” etc.) or the camouflaged bureaucratic German (“scalability”, “basic order”, ‘need for readjustment’ or ‘personnel depth’) are still fairly easy to see through, the situation is far more complex when it comes to the gentle accompanying and background music. Who would associate words and phrases like “absolutely mega!”, “baby”, “coolest clips”, “fertiliser”, “real”, “experiential”, “holistic”, “happiness”, “blazing core of embers”, “following my heart”, ‘my favourite toy’, ‘new feeling’ or ‘search for meaning’ – indeed, at the mere mention of ‘we’ – think first of ‘military prowess’?

Once your ear has become attuned to it, however, it wafts towards you from every nook and cranny. The current neglect of our language is taking place not least in a cosy, not to say: coquettish manner! Even a cursory glance reveals that a striking number of keywords dominate, evoking associations with ecological, even ‘woke’ ideas. Consequently, there is now talk of ‘sustainable resilience’, ‘greening the armies’, ‘technological ecosystems’ or ‘greater visibility’, ‘finding one’s place in society’, ‘marching through the queer field’ and ‘resilience’. Even Habermas’s jargon has now found its way into the current dumbing-down of the German language in the form of a call for ‘discursive competence’!

On the genesis

There was no master plan at the start of my ‘dictionary’. It simply cobbled itself together over time – the more my ear was sharpened, the faster it went.

Many years ago, I used to leaf through Günther Anders’ “Visit beautiful Vietnam – ABC of Aggressions” from time to time – a volume that, in the late 1960s, astutely dissected the idiom of Western reporting on the Vietnam War. Sometime in the spring of 2025, it occurred to me to take a closer look at the ‘jargon of belligerence’ currently wafting towards us from all corners. When I published the first instalment of my “dictionary” on the Swiss platform Globalbridge at the end of May, however, I had not the faintest inkling that this initial spontaneous, unsystematic collection would, just six months later, have grown into a major project, gathering some 450 entries between two book covers by the time of going to press. (As the ongoing series on Nachdenkseiten and Globalbridge shows, there are now 250 more.)

Of course, the exponential growth – ‘surge’? – of the ‘material’ is only partly due to my now more attuned ear. The more the situation comes to a head, the more this society militarises itself, the more intensely language is exploited – that is to say: openly brutalised or – far more effectively! – gently violated. So I merely had (and still have) to set my sail or cast my net – the wind and the fish come of their own accord.

A ‘psycholinguistic educational book’

I regard this small volume now before me not least as a psycholinguistic educational book disguised as a dictionary: on the sublime verbal techniques of contemporary war propaganda – which today elegantly calls itself ‘strategic communication’. The fact that I am neither a linguist nor a psychologist does not bother me in the slightest. My aim was not, after all, to dissect the respective keywords down to the ‘subsemiotic particle level’ in an ideology-critical manner, as Dolf Sternberger, Gerhard Storz and W.E. Süskind undertook immediately after the Second World War in their unsurpassed ‘Dictionary of the Inhuman’. It is quite enough to take the words at face value and give them a thorough, irreverent once-over! Or, to cheekily borrow from a classic: I make the fossilised – verbal – relationships dance by playing them their own tune…

It was crucial to me that the book – which, given that the threat of war affects us all, aims to appeal to as diverse a range of people as possible, across all generations and social backgrounds – should be easily accessible and a pleasure to read. Yes, despite – or rather, because of – the terrible subject matter, it should also be fun to keep rummaging through it! Accordingly, I have drawn inspiration neither from Sternberger’s lucid ‘Dictionary of the Inhuman’ nor from Victor Klemperer’s more epic ‘LTI’, but, engaging in cheerful scholarship, have modelled my language and style on a canonical work of linguistic satire: ‘Dummdeutsch’ by Eckhard Henscheid.

What’s more: I regard my little volume as its anti-militarist counterpart – as a mercilessly peace-defying demonstration of the current warmongering “dumbing-down German”!

Young people

My little book is dedicated to the very young: to teenagers of both sexes born in 2008 and later – who have every right in the world to enjoy their lives, their youth (insofar as that is at all possible under current conditions).

To the young people (already battered by Covid), to whom we older generations are bequeathing not only a country in staggering decline, but also a mountain of debt running into the trillions and a planet in the process of being destroyed. To the young people who, moreover – at least as far as the men are concerned – will all have to undergo conscription from mid-2027 onwards.

And who, in the event of a ‘deployment’ or ‘alliance’, would even have to risk their lives – naturally no longer for the ‘fatherland’, but this time for the community – in other words: who, like the (often no longer so young) Ukrainian and Russian soldiers today, would be sacrificed. Senior military figures are already speaking openly of thousands of ‘casualties’ – meaning the dead and the seriously injured – per day. And a historian has the audacity to call on parents, in full view of the ARD audience, to ‘sacrifice’ their children.

I very much hope that these young people, who are (still) unharmed in body and soul, realise with all due seriousness: it is they who will be the first to be hit!

“NO!” and crunching sand

There is only one alternative to all this: in the face of the absurd threat of war, the rearmament bordering on madness, and a completely uninhibited cohort of politicians and journalists who are cheerfully driving us all, ever faster every day, towards the abyss, we must – against all odds – still manage to ensure that old and young, peace activists and climate activists, people of all religions together with agnostics and atheists, with doctors, lawyers, rebellious military personnel, teachers, trade unionists, (skilled) workers and artists – not forgetting the ‘woke scene’ – finally take the peace mandate of the Basic Law at its word and not just say “NO!” but – each in their own place – dare to engage in civil disobedience and become a spanner in the works of war preparations. We have only this one option for the future!

Let us take from this what also defines the ‘sound’ of my little book:

Friedensfrechheit!  Peaceful Free Thinking!

Leo Ensel: “Dictionary of War Readiness – War Means Killing”, Promedia Verlag (Vienna), ISBN 978-3-85371-563-5, Price: €20.00