Sahra Wagenknecht

**Sahra Wagenknecht** (born **Sarah Wagenknecht**; ; 16 July 1969) is a German politician, economist, author, and publicist. Wagenknecht was a member of the federal executive committee of the PDS from 1991 to 1995 and from 2000 until it merged with the WASG in 2007. In the successor party, she represented The Left, and was able to expand her influence. There, Wagenknecht, who had long presented herself as a communist, was considered a leading figure of the Communist Platform. From 2004 to 2009, she was a Member of the European Parliament and from 2010 to 2014 one of the party's deputy chairs. From September 2009 to March 2025, Wagenknecht was a member of the German Bundestag. There, she served as deputy chair of the Left Party parliamentary group from 2011 to 2015, and subsequently as co-chair of the parliamentary group with Dietmar Bartsch until 2019, simultaneously serving as leader of the opposition until 2017. At the party's founding in January 2024, she became co-chair of the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance party), together with Amira Mohamed Ali, a position she relinquished in November 2025. She was the BSW's candidate for Chancellor in the 2025 federal election, but the party narrowly missed the 5 percent hurdle and the party was not elected to the Bundestag.

## Infobox (officeholder)

- **name**: Sahra Wagenknecht
- **honorific-suffix**: Member of the German Bundestag, MdB
- **image**: Maischberger - 2019-11-13-9491-2.jpg
- **caption**: Wagenknecht in 2019
- **office1**: Leader of the Opposition (Germany), Leader of the Opposition
- **alongside1**: Dietmar Bartsch
- **term start1**: 12 October 2015
- **term end1**: 24 October 2017
- **predecessor1**: Gregor Gysi
- **successor1**: Alice Weidel
Alexander Gauland
- **office2**: Leader of The Left (Germany), The Left in the Bundestag
- **1namedata2**: Jan Korte (politician), Jan Korte
- **deputy3**: Sevim Dağdelen
Caren Lay
- **term start2**: 12 October 2015
- **term end2**: 12 November 2019
- **predecessor3**: Gregor Gysi
- **successor3**: Dietmar Bartsch
Amira Mohamed Ali
- **alongside2**: Dietmar Bartsch
- **office4**: Member of the German Bundestag, Member of the Bundestag
for North Rhine-Westphalia
- **term start4**: 2009 German federal election, 27 October 2009
- **constituency4**: Electoral system of Germany, The Left List
- **predecessor4**: _multi-member district_
- **office8**: Member of the European Parliament
for Germany (European Parliament constituency), Germany
- **term start8**: 2004 European Parliament election in Germany, 20 July 2004
- **term end8**: 2009 European Parliament election in Germany, 14 July 2009
- **successor8**: _multi-member district_
- **predecessor8**: _multi-member district_
- **constituency8**: Electoral system of Germany, Party of Democratic Socialism List
- **birth name**: Sarah Wagenknecht
- **birth place**: Jena, East Germany (now Germany)
- **education**: University of Groningen
Chemnitz University of Technology, TU Chemnitz
- **party**: Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (since 2023)
- **otherparty**: The Left (Germany), The Left (2007–2023)
Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany), Party of Democratic Socialism (1989–2007)
Socialist Unity Party of Germany (1989)
- **residence**: Merzig, Merzig-Silwingen