Oliver Nachtwey is a professor of sociology at the University of Basel. His 2016 bestseller on German class society, Germany’s Hidden Crisis, is to be published by Verso Books this fall.
Long a leader of Germany’s left party Die Linke, Sahra Wagenknecht looks set on creating her own rival party. She accuses the Left of abandoning its historic base — but her appeal to conservative values divides the working class rather than uniting it.
Liberals praise modern Germany as Europe’s great success story. But behind the veneer of prosperity, resentment is building among ordinary Germans.
Only a left-wing revival can save Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) from political extinction. But leaders like Andrea Nahles and Olaf Scholz are not up to the task.
As German elections loom this Sunday, cracks may be starting to show in Merkel’s radical centrist reign.