Aufstehen (German: ''Stand up'') is a left-wing collective movement founded by Die Linke politician Sahra Wagenknecht in the summer of 2018. Its co-founders and participants include leading members of Germany's left-oriented parties as well as supporters from science and the arts. Their aim is to exert pressure on German political parties and to bring about a shift to the left in politics and society. This includes focusing on the issues concerning voters lost to new right-wing movements which have recently emerged in German politics. Inspirations for the movement include Jean-Luc Mélenchon's movement

La France Insoumise La France Insoumise (FI or LFI; ; "France Unbowed") is a left-wing populist political party in France, launched in 2016 by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, then a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and former co-president of the Left Party (PG). It aims ...

and Momentum, the organisation founded in support of the British Labour Party leader

Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...

Founding

The founding of the movement had been debated for months when its website was launched on 4 August 2018. It was officially launched on 4 September 2018 at a press conference in Berlin. Among the founders are members of The Left, the

SPD The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been t ...

and the Greens. Notable figures involved include the sociologist

Wolfgang Streeck Wolfgang Streeck (; born 27 October 1946) is a German economic sociologist and emeritus director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. Early life Streeck was born "just outside Münster", the son of refugees – e ...

and SPD politician

Simone Lange Simone Lange (born 24 October 1976) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has served as elected mayor of Flensburg since 2017. Early life and career Lange grew up in Rudolstadt and completed her Abitur in 1995. After ...

, who was defeated for the leadership of the party in 2018 by

Andrea Nahles Andrea Maria Nahles (born 20 June 1970) is a former German politician who has been the director of the Federal Employment Agency (BA) since 2022. Nahles is best known for having served as leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) from April ...

. The background to the founding of the movement is the surge of right-wing parties worldwide, including Germany. The founders of Aufstehen argue against the rise in social injustice and urge leftist parties to unite in order to bring about a change in German politics. Wagenknecht has also stated that the continuation of the grand coalition of the

CDU/CSU CDU/CSU, unofficially the Union parties (german: Unionsparteien, ) or the Union, is a centre-right Christian-democratic political alliance of two political parties in Germany: the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Christian Soc ...

and the SPD after the 2017 federal election was also a stimulus to the founding of the movement, arguing that this would lead to a continuation of policies that would increase economic inequality and insecurity and benefit far-right groups such as the Alternative for Germany.

Policies

Aufstehen, an "extreme left" collective, is according to some media " hostile toward immigration". Wagenknecht, who advocates "against an open-border policy for Germany", considers open borders to be politically naïve.

References

External links

Official website
2018 establishments in Germany Anti-immigration politics in Germany Left-wing politics in Germany Organizations established in 2018 Political movements in Germany Political organisations based in Germany {{Germany-poli-stub