The Berlin leader of Germany’s poll-topping hard left party — and the potential next mayor of the capital city — privately said that she and her husband are afraid of their own party’s pro-Palestine supporters.
The alliance in Europe between hard-line socialist parties, eco-warrior Greens, and Islamists has often raised the question of the extent to which leftists understand their progressive values clash with those of their new Muslim bedfellows.
For the first time, an internal document expressing fear that pro-Palestine activists would become associated with the movement was accidentally emailed to Germany’s best-selling news magazine, Der Spiegel, offering a glimpse into the thinking of one of Europe’s most influential hard-left parties.
Elif Eralp, the Turkish-heritage Berlin mayor candidate for Die Linke, the inheritor of the formerly ruling East German Marxist–Leninist Socialist Unity Party, and her office appear to have accidentally forwarded an internal version of an interview transcript she’d given Der Spiegel earlier this week back to the magazine with their internal discussions and notes still appended. Among them are Eralp’s regret at ever having agreed to the interview at all, and her fear at even discussing the party’s increasing linkup with pro-Palestine activists.
Eralp’s Die Linke won the Berlin state elections back in September, and triggered controversy the very same night as the vote count after it was revealed that figures including prominent pro-Palestine activist Ibrahim Ibrahim, and alleged clan crime boss Issa Remmo, attended the hard left party’s victory celebration. Ibrahim was described in German media as a “long-time supporter of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)” and “one of the most important propagandists for the radical pro-Palestinian community”, who is said to have hailed Yahya Sinwar — the architect of the October 7, 2023 Israel attack — as a “martyr hero”.
Der Spiegel claimed that Erlap appeared to have been “annoyed” by the section of the interview dedicated to Die Linke’s relationship with Ibrahim and other Islamists. It is stated that the politician was actually hoping to discuss her plan to seize property from landlords to nationalise housing in Berlin, rather than her party’s ties with radical Muslims.
According to the magazine, Eralp wrote in a note on the transcript, apparently intended for private party communications: “There is a PROBLEM… [my husband] is afraid of these people, and so am I… What do I do now? I should never have agreed to this interview.”
Eralp also specified that Germany’s State Criminal Police had given her security advice not to ever mention potential threats by name. She is reported to have written: “They recommended never mentioning specific names. At the time, it was about organized crime. Now it’s about people with ties to Hamas. I can’t endanger myself and my family for SPIEGEL. What do we do now? Cancel the whole interview?”.
After Spiegel decided to publish the private comments — arguing there was a public interest case for revealing the accidentally emailed document given Eralp is attempting to become mayor of Berlin, and would thus become responsible for security decisions in the city — her Die Linke party criticised the magazine, saying it had gone “too far” and endangered her family’s security. The comments “do not belong in the newspaper”, they said. A spokesman told Die Welt that Eralp has been subjected to daily threats for months.
Die Linke won the September Berlin election but, as is typical in European politics, fell far short of an outright victory. The party has since been attempting to negotiate a potential left-wing coalition with the legacy-left SPD, and the Greens.
Even before Eralp’s potentially accidental blowing up the whole left-wing coalition between socialism and Islam, there were roadblocks to a new left-wing Berlin government. The SPD expressed repeated concern about antisemitism in Die Linke, particularly over its pro-Palestine activist base’s views on Israel. The party denied these concerns, with Eralp herself quipping in September that such indicents are isolated problems with individuals, and that “as leftists, our empathy extends to all people”.
07 October 2026, Berlin: Ibrahim Ibrahim (center left) is taking part in a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Berlin-Mitte under the slogan “Stop the Gaza Genocide. Stop the War” on the anniversary of Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel. Ibrahim registered the event. Photo: Sven Kaeuler/dpa (Photo by Sven Kaeuler/picture alliance via Getty Images)
The election itself revealed a remarkable demographic split in Berlin in the field of voting habits. A majority of Muslims in Berlin voted for Die Linke, as did a majority of women under 25, far in advance of — for instance — Catholic voters, or young men, who tend to skew to the right.
Fears for the security of the would-be next mayor of Berlin and her husband or not, the job of being a prominent left-wing leader in Germany continues. Eralp made an appearance at Berlin city hall, known as the ‘Red Hall’ for its distinctive shade of 19th brick and external terracotta panels, to celebrate the 65th anniversary of post-war West Germany opening its borders to migrant workers for the first time.
Germany owes its considerable population of Turkish migrants to this era, when the country invited ‘guest workers’ which it believed were necessary to overcome labour shortages. Turkey Today reports this week of the anniversary: “Many Turkish workers later chose to settle and bring their families over, transforming a migration meant to cover a short-term labor shortage into a permanent social change.”
