Talk:Left Party (Germany)

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[edit] Requested move

The Party of the Left. → Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany) This page has been located since it was created at Party of Democratic Socialism (which is now a disambiguation; I want to put it back to the old title + disambiguation). Two editors, including myself, have suggested that a move be discussed on talk before being executed, but another user insists on unilaterally moving it to its present title. The final location of the page should be determined via its talk page, but it should remain at the old title until a decision is made. - Nat Krause 08:17, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

FYI, the official website (German) [1] says the party is called Die Linkspartei., with (at federal level, and optionally at local level) the "add-on" PDS. Rd232 17:03, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

  • Do not move (now equates to Keep at The Party of the Left. since page moved since then)
    1. Completely absurd. The page has been located at Party of Democratic Socialism because that was the party's name. Now, however, the party has been renamed and so the page had to be moved to the new name, which is The Party of the Left. (yes, the period is part of the name). There is nothing to discuss - no one here has brought any argument yet why the new title should be wrong. If anyone does so, I'm happy to discuss. But until then, it is beyond me why the page should be moved back to the old title which is definitely no longer the party's name. NoPuzzleStranger 08:36, July 19, 2005 (UTC) <--This comment was moved from WP:RM user:Philip Baird Shearer
  • Propose move to Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany)
    1. Today, the PDS was renamed into Die Linkspartei.PDS. My experience from the German Wikipedia is, that there is now an edit war, which just resulted into complete chaos. My experience from the Norwegian version ist, that there is now a separate new article for just the same organization, which extended/changed its name. Before we start with such things, I suggest a smooth move of this aricle under the above mentioned title. Thx :-) Arne List 17:59, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
    2. I agree. I moved the page to Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany), which was as close as I could get to the previous title. Please let's reach consensus on talk before further moves. - Nat Krause 12:51, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
    3. Move as proposed on requested moves. Gene Nygaard 08:51, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Propose move to Left Party (Germany)
    1. Move to Left Party (Germany). Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) says: "use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article". News reports in English seem to have opted for the shorter and easier-to-use "Left Party" as a translation, including the BBC, the Times and even the German-based Deutsche Welle. (This is also in accordance with the translation used by a similarly named party in Sweden - see Left Party.) The definite article should absolutely not be part of the article name - see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name). Neither should the period be part of the article name. It has not been used in any English language translation I've seen so far, and it won't even be the normal form used in German, except perhaps in the party's own documents. The reason is obvious - it becomes awkward and very hard to read when used in a sentence (e.g. "The Left Party. claims to be better at governing. Political analysts say the Left Party. might be wrong."). For instance, the Die Welt article on the name change uses "die Linkspartei" without being followed by a period. / Alarm 17:35, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
    2. Move to "Left Party (Germany)". According to Wikipedia Naming conventions (use English). I prefer the shorter name that Alarm mentioned, as does many media outlets. – AxSkov (T) 09:01, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Er...

I would support, in the following, order,

"Party of Democratic Socialism" is no longer part of the name - although the abbreviation "PDS" is (as is the trailing full stop even if there is no add-on used). Ergo Party of Democratic Socialism of any flavour should be ruled out. Rd232 17:03, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

  • I have decided to drop my objections to moving the page to a new name (the reasons for which I had yet to state), although, as the situation develops it might need to be rehashed in the future. I now support moving to some variant of Die Linkspartei., preferably the current location Left Party (Germany). If we are translating it, I don't see any reason to maintain the typographical oddities of the original—and if we want to preserve them we should not translate it. - Nat Krause 17:30, 21 July 2005 (UTC) PS: I think, if we are going to vote, it should be by Condorcet, not approval voting.

Keep Left Party (Germany). It's short, it's descriptive, it does without the meaningless dot. PDS is just an unnecessary epithet now (That was one of the WASG's conditions.) --134.2.223.55 17:01, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Well, I was hoping to get consensus first to move this page back to (almost) its original location as a temporary measure, but we can do it this way if editors prefer. However, I think the title The Party of the Left. was problematic, and everyone except for one editor opposes it, so I am moved it to Left Party (Germany) pending the outcome of this discussion. I will have more comments later. - Nat Krause 07:28, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm not voting on this, but Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) says "Title your pages using the English name, if one exists" (emphasis mine). I always took this to mean that it applies to names like Vienna and Munich, which have a proper name in English. That does not mean making up arbitrary names for things that are non-English in origin, so in my opinion this article should be at Die Linkspartei. and nowhere else. Don't give me a million examples where this is handled differently on Wikipedia, I still think it's wrong. Might as well move Helmut Kohl to Helmut Cabbage *grumble*. But on the other hand, I don't really care all that much and won't start a move war, no use going all Gdanzigsk over this one :) -- grm_wnr Esc 17:08, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

It is usual (I think) to translate political party names on Wikipedia, because that's what media tend to do and we try and follow the most common usage. Helmut Kohl to Helmut Cabbage - now that's move I could support! :-) Rd232 17:16, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm all for a more specific wording on Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English), but the rules are actually rather clear as they are. It says (emphasis added) "use the most commonly used English version of the name" (hence not necessarily an official name). At Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Organizations (such as political parties) it is even specifically clarified that this rule applies to political parties. If a majority of English-language sources use "Left Party" that is what the article should be named. This is not a case of Wikipedians arbitrarily making their own home-grown translation, but simply a case of conforming to existing majority usage. If Helmut Cabbage had been the most commonly used way to refer to Helmut Kohl in English, the Wikipedia article should (possibly) be moved... but until that happens, he sits safely at his present location. While I understand that the results of this policy might seem awkward to a German, the only alternative, in my view, would be a policy under which all organizations are named according to their native-language name, regardless of the existence of a more widely-used or even official English translation. I'm not sure that would be better, but you are perfectly free to start the discussion over at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English).
However, if it can be shown that a majority of English sources has started to refer to the party as Die Linkspartei, this would be my number one choice. Note, however, that from the above also follows that the article should be at Die Linkspartei. including the period, if and only if the period is used more often than not when the name appears in the middle of in English-language sentence. And I am rather sure this will not be the case. Rather than being faithful to the typographic whims of the German party, the article should be placed where people familiar with English-language sources would expect to find it. / Alarm 17:15, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Decision

There was a small plurality to move to Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany) so that's what I've done for now. This still needs discussion, however, so please continue. violet/riga (t) 17:15, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I can't see that there was such a plurality. Nat Krause has struck out his statement "I agree" by his vote and actually writes further down that his preferred location is now Left Party (Germany). Also, anonymous user 134.2.223.55 supported this (even though I don't know if anonymous users are allowed to vote in these matters?). I'd say the plurality is for Left Party (Germany). Alarm 17:35, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
My apologies, you are right - I just counted the bulleted numbers and didn't look at the long-winded replies! Fixed. violet/riga (t) 17:47, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I was under the impression that there is no "Left party" so to speak - "Die Linke" refers more to the alliance between Gysi's PDS (which, incidentally, do still exist) and Oskar LaFontaine's WASG, although the PDS is by far the bigger party. Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 11:56, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

This is true - strictly, this article (describing the PDS) should now be at something like Left Party.PDS, since the planned Left Party as a merger of PDS and WASG doesn't exist yet, and is currently only an electoral coalition, with the PDS changing its name to reflect the coalition and planned merger. The problem is that Wikipedia has a convention of naming things according to the most common English usage, even if it's colloquial or misleading (see perennial East Germany issue); and the English press seems to call it just "Left Party" as they don't seem to want to inflict these complications on their readers (even though it involves the possibly-dangerous assumption that the merger will go ahead as planned). Rd232 13:02, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure I quite agree. First, the legal name of the party is Left Party and simply The Left as well as Left Party.PDS and The Left.PDS. Several of the party state organizations adopted the former usage, and both appeared widely in the party's advertising during the campaign. "Left Party" and "The Left" are used with increasing frequency in media coverage (in the German media, not only in the "English press!") and also regularly by its politicians (from both WASG and the ex-PDS). The short form without "PDS" is both legal (it's in the party constitution) and by now a part of regular political discourse in Germany. It's not a colloquialism and not merely an "electoral" usage; but a legally-registered alternative wordmark and in Germany the increasingly normative name of the party.
It's true that the merged party doesn't yet exist (legally) but that's not relevant to the question. As I said, the name without "PDS" is one of the legal forms in the party's constitution. There will be a unified party fraction in the Bundestag. You can see this on the party's new Bundestag website where it's only "The Left in the Bundestag" and not the "Left Party.PDS" or "The Left.PDS."
Retaining the short form "PDS" as an option was a tactical decision to avoid confusion with voters in eastern Germany. But now the election is over and that's no longer an issue. It will be used less and less by the party (and the media) and before too long discarded entirely.
There's no reason we shouldn't stay with a legal name that is increasingly the normative usage in the German media.
BTW, "PDS" alone and "Party of Democratic Socialism" are no longer legal names of the party.
I've no objection to additional listings under "Linkspartei.PDS" and "Die Linke.PDS" as well as "Left Party.PDS" and "The Left.PDS" provided they point to the main article titled "Left Party." But that's merely for navigation purposes. --langohio 23:10, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] German Left Party

It has been suggested to move the page to German Left Party "for disambig reasons".

  • oppose. Unnecessary move and would wrong imply that "German" is part of the name. Rd232 11:55, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. We've already had this discussion - which the person proposing doesn't seem to have been part of. Secretlondon 12:28, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
  • oppose, incorrect, current parenthesis disambiguation is superior. / Alarm 18:37, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
  • oppose. Agree with above: not name of party. If there needs to be a change, I'd agree the better solution would be to rename current "Left Party" entry for Swedish Vänsterpartiet to "Left Party (Sweden)" to avoid confusion. Question: do we also need a disambig to accommodate "The Left" which is the party's alternative name and the official name of its Bundestag caucus? We've already got an entry for The Left (Luxembourg) which is the name of another European Left affiliate. Right now the article The Left points to a general article on Left-wing politics. --langohio 03:36, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your comments. I will thus modify my suggestion to just Talk:Left Party, to a move of Left Party --> Left Party (Sweden). I encourage you all to give opinions there too. Fred-Chess 11:54, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Why don't we just keep Left Party of Sweden at Left Party for a bit, and see how Die Linkspartei.'s future shakes out. Maybe it will change its name; maybe it will splinter apart; maybe it will splinter into irrelevance. We can take a wait-and-see attitude and move Left Party later. - Nat Krause 09:30, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Discision

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. Ryan Norton T | @ | C 02:21, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alliance between the WASG and PDS/Linkspartei./Whatever

Can someone explain the exact nature of the alliance between the WASG and the Left Party? Is "the Left Party" the new name for the WASG-PDS combo? Or are the WASG and Left Party still separate? And if they are separate, how will their "alliance" work for the national party list vote in September? Won't there need to be one name used nationwide on ballots for the list vote, and if so what will that name be? --Jfruh 20:36, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Only the Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus is now the Die Linkspartei. or Die Linke.PDS. The Wahlalternative für Arbeit und soziale Gerechtigkeit is already the WAsG or the Partei Arbeit und soziale Gerechtigkeit-die Wahlalternative. Some members of the Wahlalternative go to the lists of the Linkspartei. . The jewish member Gregor Gysi (Linkspartei.) and the french-saarländischOskar Lafontaine are the Spitzenkandidaten of this unity list. Now the Linkspartei. has 12 percent in all Germany and in the East-area 33 percent.

Next year make both parties perhabs anew party with the name Demokratische SozialistINNen or similar like this. My English is the worst on this page, but perhabs you can understand it!?

  • Yes, Jfruh, the parties are still separate. The electoral alliance is legal because the WASG candidates are running on the "open list" of the renamed Left Party. There was a debate about the legality of this move, but on Aug. 19 the electoral committees in every German state ruled that the procedure was legal. About one-fourth of the Left Party candidates are WASG members or "parteilos" (non-party members).

The two parties voted that they will begin negotiations after the election to form one, united party. In the meantime, they will maintain one unified Bundestag caucus under the joint leadership of Lafontaine (WASG) and Gysi (PDS). Relatively small minorities in both parties oppose the unification. --langohio 14:28, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks langohio, but there's still part of it I don't understand. To my knowledge, seats in the Bundestag are allocated based on the nationwide party vote, with the number of constituency seats a party won substracted from the open list seats. So, if the FDP wins 5 local seats, and then gets enough party list votes so that it should have 50 total seats in the Bunestag, then 45 people from the FDP party list go into the Bundestag.
But I don't understand how this works with an electoral alliance like this. For instance: say the Left Party wins 4 local seats, the WASG wins 4 local seats, and the Left Party gets enough of the nationwide party vote that it should have a total of 40 total Bundestag seats. Now, in practice the Left Party list is really a combined WASG/Left Party list, so 32 names off the list ought to go into the Bundestag. But in *theory*, it's just the Left Party list (which happens to have some non-party members on it), so it seems that it would get apportioned 36 seats -- and the Left Pary/WASG combo would get 4 more seats in the Bundestag than it deserved. What is the mechanism by which the German electoral system avoids this problem? Does the WASG say that the Left Party list is serving as its national list as well?
I'm guessing that this will not actually be an issue in the upcoming election, since the WASG probably won't win any local seats. But it's an aspect of the system that puzzles me nonetheless. --Jfruh 14:59, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Jfruh, I can clear this up. The two parties are not running independently, that is, WASG is not competing separately as a party in any district or state. The agreement is that a certain number of WASG candidates were nominated to run on the Left Party (ex-PDS) lists, so there's only one party, not two, on the ballot. Joint electoral lists as you've described above are not legal in Germany, therefore, the only option was that the Left Party would agree to accommodate WASG candidates on its own list. Legally, they're all considered candidates of the Left Party, regardless of party membership.
FYI, voters cast two votes in an election: the "first vote" is for a candidate running in that district; the "second vote" is for the party. The five-percent threshold is calculated from the "second votes" in each individual state; the direct election of a candidate from a district is counted on the basis of a plurality of "first votes." You could, for example, vote for a Green candidate you liked in your district on your first vote and then vote for the state list of a different party on your second vote. In any case, there are a just a few WASG members who have a slight chance of winning a plurality of "first votes" in their district--as candidates of the Left Party. But most of the successful WASG candidates will be seated as a result of the Left Party's proportion of the "second votes" in the state where they're running.
Let's say, for example, that the Left Party wins 6 or 7 percent of the vote in the state of North Rhine-Westfalia (NRW), which is probable. Then Oskar Lafontaine definitely is elected, because not only is he running for a direct mandate in an electoral district in his home state of the Saarland, which he possibly will lose, but he also occupies "Platz 1" (first place) on the Left Party "state list" in NRW. That kind of double-dipping is quite legal in Germany. Parties tend to put the candidates they most want to win either in favorable districts (for first votes), or in favorable positions at the top of a state list (for second votes), or very often in both. And, just to be sure they don't repeat the fiasco of 2002, the Left Party has targeted five favorable districts in eastern Berlin and its suburbs for five of their strongest candidates, including Gysi and Bisky. The plan is to guarantee the minimum three direct mandates needed for full proportional representation even if they fail to reach the five-percent "hurdle." But after the pact reached with WASG, that no longer appears to be a danger. Now, is this too much info? :) langohio
Thanks langohio! The crucial bit of information that I didn't know was that candidates would be running as Left Party candidates for the first vote as well as the second. That clears a lot up!
Thanks for the info. I am an American but I lived in Berlin for 5 months in 2002 during the run-up to the 2002 elections. It was an interesting experience and I've been intrigued by German politics and elections since. --Jfruh 17:12, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
I presume we won't have proportional seat results until October. We know it's gone from 2 to "lots" but that's about it? Secretlondon 06:07, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
Hi, Secretlondon. The number of seats won by each party was officially published election night by the federal election office: it's 54 for the Left Party, as the revision indicates. The vote Oct. 2 in Dresden probably won't affect the overall nationwide percentages, though there's a slight possibility that the SPD might win up to three "overhang" seats if it does extremely well in that district. But that outcome would seem to require the Left Party encouraging its large bloc of voters in that district to vote for the SPD, which now appears unlikely to happen. To tell you the truth, this rule about "overhang" seats is the one thing I don't understand about the German electoral system. --langohio 21:12, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Controversy section

Tried to make this as NPOV as possible. Enemies see PDS/WASG as populist ex-cop-outs, supporters as the rebirth of true left-wing policy. Feel free to comment. -- Onomatopoeia 15:53, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Good job, and thank you. Also, I apologize for making changes w/o registering under my username (my recent expansion and updating of the article, not related to the dispute mentioned below). I'll avoid this in future.

Balanced reporting about the party is difficult now because Germany's in the "hot phase" of its election campaign, and the mainstream parties want to paint the party as extremist.

This is relevant to the discussion below on whether the fact that the party is still under "observation" by the security service should be mentioned. It is a fact, and could be included, but to maintain NPOV it would have to be placed in context: in other words, a fairly long section. Also, the rules for political observation by the German security service are very different from those in the U.S., Britain, etc., and would have to be explained. langohio 14:48 22 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Verfassungsschutz

There is an ongoing edit war between an anon (various similar IPs, usually Special:Contributions/83.109.179.167) and another user (User:Rivarez), regarding the monitoring of the party by the German government (Verfassungsschutz, Constitutional Protection). (Anon claims Rivarez is a sockpuppet for User:wik, but even if true, others have also had issues with anon's contributions here.)

Anon wants to add "The party is under observation of the German intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz), which classifies it as left-extreme." (For a while the anon also insisted on adding the phrase "dictatorially ruled the totalitarian" to the intro.)

After long and intensive discussion, which the anon appears to have participated in, the issue on the German article for Left Party seems to have reached the point of making precise statements instead of sweeping generalisation:

"Die Partei selbst wird vom Bundesverfassungsschutz dahingehend als bedenklich eingestuft, weil sie offen „linksextremistische“ Vereinigungen innerhalb der Partei dulde und weiterhin an Systemüberwindung festhalte. Die Parteiflügel Kommunistische Plattform und Marxistisches Forum werden von einigen Landesbehörden für Verfassungsschutz beobachtet, da diese nach Ansicht der entsprechenden Verfassungsschutzbehörden extremistische Bestrebungen verfolgen. Ferner kooperiere die Partei besonders auf kommunaler Ebene immer wieder mit „eindeutig linksextremen“ Parteien, insbesondere der DKP. Der Verfassungsschutz beschreibt das Verhältnis beider Parteien als „freundschaftlich-kritisch“. Darüber hinaus gäbe es auch auf internationaler Ebene Zusammenarbeit mit „Linksextremisten“."

Sorry, don't have time to translate now. Point is, if it's to be mentioned, it should be done in the same way, by being precise about what the relationship between the party and the Verfassungsschutz is at different levels of party and government. Rd232 09:12, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the very POV and tendentious (and many times repeated) attempt by an anonymous user to restore the "[Left] Party is under observation" argument, this time phrased as: "In the Verfassungsschutzbericht of 2003, the policies of the party is referred to as Linksextremistische Bestrebungen, and it is stated that the party is aiming at overthrowing the democratic system in Germany in order to etablish a socialist system, and that it still accept extremist forces within the party and cooperates with left-extremists in Germany and abroad.'"
Same objections as above by other users. It's written in non-standard English, which obviously could be fixed, but is also a tendentious over-simplification of the fact that the Left Party and its predecessor (the PDS) has been under observation by a federal watchdog agency since 1991. This is partly true, but is a hold-over from the Cold War, is very controversial in Germany, is strongly contested not only by the party but also by civil-rights lawyers, and, besides, it's manifestly defamatory to say the party "is aiming at overthrowing the democratic system" because there is absolutely nothing in the party's program or behavior since German unification that would suggest this claim is remotely accurate.
I agree with above that it's not irrelevant to mention this point if it can be done NPOV. "Anon" isn't interested in phrasing it in that way, and until someone finds a way to summarize intelligibly a politically, culturally and legally complicated situation, I suggest we continue to remove these posts. --langohio 00:34, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Anon is back at it again, and again complaining about "wik" (a user blocked in May 2004, apparently), as if no-one else disagrees with him or those who do are all sockpuppets of Wik. He makes some constructive minor edits elsewhere, so I don't understand why he doesn't engage in discussion - he's not going to get his way by continuing past behaviour. Rd232 23:22, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

User:Rivarez does seem to have been banned as a sockpuppet of Wik. I hope it was due to more than allegations from this IP. I don't think this IP is going to talk to us - it just seems to want to fight. Secretlondon 11:42, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Removing referenced and easily verifiable facts is clearly plain vandalism. If anyone has a problem with the exact wording, it's much better to change that wording than deleting sections which are addressing issues which are important in the German debate concerning this party. -- anon 14:52, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
The facts are neither referenced nor "easily" verifiable, and the onus is on those who want contested material added to an article to persuade others. I do not think it is essential that the issue be mentioned here, but I copied the German wikipedia wording (developed after much debate) above which, if translated (accurately) I would be OK with. Rd232 15:40, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question re. "blog spam"

Secretlondon has removed to links to articles on my blog on this subject, though another user restored them (I didn't). I'm willing to accept this if someone can tell me the policy: these are links to articles (both analyses) that are relevant to the topic, go into depth, are (IMHO) well-researced, but also do represent some POV on my part so are more appropriate as links to external resources than as content in the article.

In this case my "blog" is a website where I report news and maintain other services. I tend to write only on issues where I have reasonable expertise. Are they acceptable links or should I refrain from doing this in the future? Thanks for your advice. --langohio 00:45, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Langohio, my take on it is that in general you should never link to your own site on Wikipedia. If it is really notable and useful enough, let somebody else do the linking, and if you've really provided that good of a resource, it'll happen. So I would say it wasn't acceptable for you to add the link, but the other person who added it in more or less clears it, though it's still subject to discussion on the talk page, and if other editors want it out it should probably go.
If you've really got that much to add from your own sources, consider just adding the material straight into the article. Make sure you can substantiate with references to other sources (besides your news site), for example, major media organizations or whatever.
My wife and I run a discussion board that I'd love to list on the appropriate article, but I just don't see that as appropriate, and so I don't list it. Maybe some day if my discussion board has grown to thousands of users and is the universally acknowledged place to go to discuss the subject, it'll be there. Jdavidb 17:01, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
Okay, that's helpful. Just FYI, I've actually written about 90 percent of the content on this article: the stuff on my site is additional analysis but I'm not going to load the Wikipedia article with it. So I still think it's a valid external source. But I'll be careful about this in the future. --langohio 18:39, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Jewishness

The article states that "Two of the Left Party's leaders, Gregor Gysi and Lothar Bisky, are Jewish."

AFAIK they have some Jewish ancestors, but are not Jews themselves.

Depends on how you define "Jewish" or "Jews". Halakha says that those with Jewish ancestry (presuming it's matrilineal) are still Jews even if they don't follow the Jewish faith. Many consider people of Jewish descent of whatever kind to be Jewish even if they aren't religious (and this includes the non-religious Jews themselves). It would be interesting to know if they self-identified. I'm betting they would be Jewish enough to fall under the Nurenburg laws... --Jfruh 15:29, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I was uncomfortable anyway with whether that Trivia point was encyclopedic; now I think it should definitely be removed. Rd232 15:41, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Gregor Gysi's Jewish background is well known, but I can't find any source indicating a Jewish background for Bisky. Born in Pomerania during the war and expulsed with his family in 1945 by the Stalinists, he does not seem to have had problems with the Nazis. Also, after growing up in free western Germany, he 18 years old voluntarily went to the GDR, a very anti-semitic state (among other things it voted for classifying zionism as racism in the UN) -- anon 18:23, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Our article on Gregor Gysi says "During his many election campaigns, especially for the first post-unification all-German Bundestag, Gysi was the object of antisemitic attacks and rumormongering. Gysi is not Jewish himself.However, his father, Klaus Gysi, a former East German communist official, had a Jewish mother. Gysi's mother, Irene, had a single Jewish grandparent.".

Our article on Lothar Bisky says nothing about this subject. From looking at the German version I can't obviously see a mention either. I would expect them to be atheists - and therefore that we are talking about ethnic Jewishness rather than religious practice. Gysi just has a paternal grandmother, Bisky is unknown. I say remove. Secretlondon 18:28, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Small correction: Gysi is 37,5 % Jewish ancestry. But since none of them are personally Jewish in religious sense, it is irrelevant in the context it is mentioned (which was the party being largely atheistic) and I don't think it belong in the party article anyway. anon 18:57, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I can't give you a percentage of Gysi's Jewish blood, but it would have been enough to get him deported to Auschwitz. Gysi considers himself to be ethnically Jewish and was active in Berlin's Jewish community before the Wende. Atheism or non-religiosity does not determine Jewish identity, as any secular Jew in Israel will tell you, and under Israeli law personal religious beliefs do not validly determine whether one is or is not a Jew. The reference to Gysi's Jewishness was relevant to the accusations that the party pandered to xenophobia, but I agree it's not essential. Also, my reference to Bisky was incorrect, I learned from a Jewish acquaintance in Berlin recently. He is not Jewish. Thanks, by the way, for recent editorial cleaning-up which has improved the readability of the article. --langohio 20:52, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Ach Gott, es ist doch scheißegal, welche Religion sie habben. Übrigens sind beide bekennende Atheisten. Bisky ist christlicher Abstammung und Gysi hat jüdische Vorfahren über seinen Vater, ist allerdings nach jüdischem Recht kein echter Jude. Simon Mayer

PS: Hier ist eine unabhängige Seite über Gregor Gysi und seine Ahnen : see also here. Look at: Die andere Gysi-Bio on the left column.

[edit] Party leaders

The article makes no reference as to who leads the party - ie chairman ect. Agathoclea 11:21, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

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