#rp25 speaker Heidi Reichinnek: Election campaign 2.0

In the run-up to the 2025 federal elections, the so-called ‘Mission Silberlocke’ was seen as a beacon of hope for the Left Party (Die Linke) to overcome the five per cent electoral threshold. But then everything turned out differently. One person in particular was responsible for making the election campaign exciting again, especially online: Heidi Reichinnek. Her ‘Brandmauer’ speech in the Bundestag went viral, in which she sharply criticised the cooperation between the CDU and AfD, reached over six million views on TikTok alone and became a symbol of the left's digital upswing.

In an interview with Johnny Haeusler, we would like to hear from her: How did the German left use social media in the election campaign, and what factors contributed to its success? How does a politician manage to communicate authentically on platforms such as TikTok? How does she deal with hate and threats? And how does she maintain her motivation and good humour?

Heidi Reichinnek joined Die Linke in September 2015 after working as a research assistant at the Centre for Near and Middle Eastern Studies in Marburg, as a language and cultural specialist in a facility for unaccompanied minors and on projects to strengthen democracy and prevent radicalisation.

From November 2016 to 2021, she was a member of the Left Party in the Osnabrück City Council before being elected state spokesperson for the Linksjugend [’solid] Niedersachsen (Left Party Youth Lower Saxony) and, in 2019, one of the chairpersons of the Left Party in Lower Saxony. Her term as chairwoman of Die Linke group in the Bundestag began in 2024, followed by her nomination as the lead candidate for Die Linke party in the 2025 federal election.