According to the Bloomberg news agency, CDU Bundestag member Roderich Kiesewetter has filed a criminal complaint against former Left Party politician Sahra Wagenknecht on suspicion of incitement. The background to this is statements made by the chairwoman of the alliance named after her, Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), at an election campaign event on May 27 in Saarbrücken. However, Kiesewetter denied the incident to WELT shortly afterwards – there was no complaint, and Bloomberg’s report was incorrect.
In an election campaign speech to around 300 supporters, Wagenknecht demanded that Kiesewetter be “stopped” and “not allowed to continue” because of his support for arms deliveries to Ukraine. With his plea for the use of German weapons against targets on Russian territory, Kiesewetter is “bringing the war to Germany,” said the BSW boss. She added: “This is madness. People like this must be stopped. They must not be allowed to continue.”
Last Saturday, Kiesewetter was physically attacked and slightly injured by a man at an election campaign stand in Aalen, Baden-Württemberg. The attacker, who according to investigators comes from the so-called lateral thinker scene, insulted the 60-year-old CDU politician as a “warmonger” and, according to witnesses, knocked him to the ground.
It was said that Kiesewetter had also filed a complaint against Wagenknecht’s husband, the former Left Party politician Oskar Lafontaine. Lafontaine, who spoke in Saarbrücken immediately after Wagenknecht, had demanded, among other things, that “crazy people” like the CDU politician be put “behind bars” because they were unconstitutionally calling for war. Kiesewetter wanted open conflict with the nuclear power Russia and was thereby risking World War III, said the now 80-year-old.
Kiesewetter is “playing with fire” when he demands that Germany “send missiles to Moscow and destroy ministries there,” said Lafontaine to the cheers of his supporters. “They really should be locked up because our constitution criminalizes calls for war.”
When asked, a BSW spokeswoman said that Wagenknecht and Lafontaine had only encouraged their supporters to “strengthen or stop certain positions with their voting decision.” To suggest otherwise to the two politicians is “perfidious and an impertinence.” The increasing violence against politicians is “a major problem” and is causing “great concern” to all parties.
In 1990, Lafontaine was the victim of an assassination attempt as the SPD’s candidate for chancellor. At an election campaign event in Cologne, a mentally disturbed woman stabbed Lafontaine with a knife, critically injuring him.