They are not welcome on the left. They don't want to belong to the right

The right-wing extremists will start on Monday evening. In the early evening, a few hundred supporters of the “Freie Sachsen” gathered in front of the Leipzig Opera to demonstrate against the price increases. Right-wing publicist Jürgen Elsässer, who introduces himself as a "German" who doesn't want "our beautiful Germany to perish", heats up the crowd. "Oh god not that one," says a woman on the other side of the barrier, making a gagging noise as Alsatian is introduced.

The Left Party is holding its rally just a few meters away from the right-wing extremists – with several thousand participants. They also want to demonstrate here - for an excess profit tax, a gas price cap and higher taxation of the rich. The party had previously announced a “hot autumn” of protests, but at the same time distanced itself from right-wing protests, which had previously flirted with an alleged proximity to the Left Party. On Monday, Elsässer used the media frenzy caused by the announcement to smugly promote cooperation with the demonstrators on the other side of the barrier. In the current situation, one cannot “allow oneself to make distinctions.”

However, the Left Party is interested in a strict demarcation this evening. Shortly after Sören Pellmann, directly elected member of the Bundestag from Leipzig, enters the stage, he makes an appeal against the right. "We have to take to the streets before the fake right-wingers do it," the initiator of the protest calls out to applause.

In the run-up, even party members had criticized holding the demonstration on a Monday because that day had been taken over by the right-wing extremists from Pegida and the lateral thinker scene. Pellmann, on the other hand, wants to tie in with the protests against Hartz IV. However, the reference to the protests at the time met with little applause. The younger and more middle-class demo participants in particular were probably still children at the time of Schröder's social reforms and/or were not affected by them. In general, all demo participants rarely applaud at the same time on this evening. Depending on the topic - be it anti-racism, anti-capitalism or security policy - there are enthusiastic claqueurs or silence among the various groups of participants.

And so on Monday the numerous conflicts within the party will also be visible on Leipzig's Augustusplatz. Above all, the partly unclear relationship with Russia is causing unrest. Shortly after the start of the event, an elderly lady holds up a sign that reads: "Open Nordstream 2, ceasefire now." Immediately, a steward comes and asks the participant to pack her sign. "Please take it down," she says. "What do you think the man (meaning the WELT reporter) will write in the newspaper tomorrow?"

Efforts are clearly made to present a positive image to the outside world on this evening – but that doesn't always work. A brief exchange of words with another elderly gentleman broke out after the stewards wanted to ban the pro-Nordstream sign. He exclaims: "That's what Sahra Wagenknecht (also) said." So there it is, the name of the left-wing politician that some older people here would have liked to hear speak and who like hardly anyone else in the party for a moderate course of the party against Russia. But Wagenknecht does not take part in the event after various arguments in recent weeks.

The couple who brought the poster are furious. "I'm being excluded here as a free citizen," says the man, who introduces himself as Mr. Thomas, 82, from Nordhausen in Thuringia. He and his wife always voted for the Left Party, he says. "Because they wanted to control finance capital and the armaments industry." Now he wants to turn his back on the party because it is not committed to peace with Russia. Joining the counter-demonstration on the other side of the square or voting for the AfD is out of the question for him. He considers the alternative for Germany to be dangerous, saying it is “völkisch and neoliberal.”

He and his wife once ran at a demonstration against the corona restrictions, says Mr. Thomas, who obviously feels politically homeless and would have liked to hear Sahra Wagenknecht speak. Nevertheless, he will stay until the end of this evening. They are not welcome on the left, but the Thomases say they don't feel comfortable with the right and right-wing radicals either.

Especially older people on the fringes of the demo promote peace politics - also with Russia - and applaud when it goes against capitalism. But they feel marginalized in the party. Anti-fascism seems to be more important to the younger ones. They rather applaud the numerous statements against right-wing extremists.

But there is also some unanimity. The most stirring speaker of the evening, who gets applause from all "camps", is Nam Duy Ngyuen. The Vietnam-born party activist has criticized his party's lack of profile in the past (“Spd's dinghy”) and delivers a combative speech in which he also tells his personal story. Growing up in poverty and threatened with deportation as a youngster, he describes his role as a working-class child and citizen with a migration background. "My father worked his ass off in the steel mill," he describes, clearly emotional. Nevertheless, his parents were only second-class citizens. "Racism and exploitation have a system in capitalism," he exclaims. And Mr. Thomas also applauds loudly. Ngyuen seems to be one of the few speakers that evening to convince the entire audience.

Apart from him, only Gregor Gysi, whom the organizers have saved for the closing speaker, can do it. When the political veteran entered the stage, some protesters pushed forward towards the stage. Many film the performance.

Gysi, who has known his own party, the electorate and their respective sensitivities for decades, practices the question of Russia policy on the one hand and on the other hand. “I was always in favor of sanctions against the Russian leadership and oligarchs,” Gysi exclaims, “but I am against sanctions against the Russian people. Why should they become impoverished, they didn't decide to go to war."

Applaud young and old. "We all want the war to end as quickly as possible, and if a compromise is necessary, then it has to be found," he adds, before moving on to German arms exports and Germany's historical special situation as the successor state to the mass-murdering Nazi regime. And it is also aimed at the counter-demonstrators. "If there is a little remnant of reason in their heads, they have to understand that nationalism, xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism have only caused the greatest damage to countless peoples." we have nothing to do."

At least on the face of it, the demarcation to the right seems to be working. Antifa activists are positioned all evening in front of the barrier in the direction of the "Freie Sachsen". A banner reads: "There is no solidarity from the right." The Left Party's sea of ​​red flags does not mix with the green, white and yellow flags of the right-wing extremists. However, the Nord Stream 2 sign and other pro-Russia messages can still be seen at the end of the evening. Apparently, the stewards have given up taking action against those who think differently in their own ranks.

Before the demonstration train starts moving after sunset, Sören Pellmann speaks up again. "The hot autumn has begun."