CDU rejects new Linke chief's apology for calling party 'fascist', demands resignation

The original firestorm

On the morning of his election as Die Linke co-chair in Potsdam, Luigi Pantisano gave a video interview to Bild in which he said,

“Ultimately, there is currently no difference between the CDU, which makes fascist policy, the AfD, or the fascists themselves.”

The remark landed like a bomb inside the party congress, where delegates from eastern states are acutely aware that their party tolerates CDU minority governments in Thuringia and Saxony and may need to cooperate with the Conservatives after the September state vote in Saxony-Anhalt.

Spitzenkandidatin Eva von Angern told delegates,

“We are the firewall!”

, underlining that the Linke is the bulwark against the AfD taking power in the east. But Pantisano's equation of Christian Democrats with fascists immediately drew fire from the CDU and from his own ranks.

Apology under fire

On Monday, Pantisano issued a statement calling his words "verkürzt und in dieser Form falsch" (shortened and false in that form). He asked forgiveness especially from those in the CDU who stress the need for a clear firewall against the AfD, but he also reiterated his criticism of the Union's "Rechtskurs" (rightward drift).

CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann flatly rejected the gesture. He told Bild,

“To say 'shortened' is an impertinence. I'd be curious about his long version.”

Linnemann maintained his pre‑apology call for Pantisano to resign. Saxony‑Anhalt CDU General Secretary Mario Karschunke added that comparing democrats to fascists trivializes real extremism and poisons political debate.

Ostpolitik tightrope

Nowhere is the fallout more delicate than in Saxony‑Anhalt, where a CDU government may depend on Linke toleration after 6 September. Karschunke's sharp rebuke nevertheless stressed that one should "build bridges, not deepen trenches", a small but deliberate signal that cooperation cannot be ruled out. Linke co‑chair Ines Schwerdtner insisted on ARD that, wherever her party sits in a Landtag,

“We have a responsibility.”

A weakened mandate

Pantisano's low‑key apology did little to heal the rift. The Focus analysis called it a typical politician's non‑apology that, by keeping the fascism accusation alive for those in the CDU who don't emphasize the firewall, actually "turns a gesture of humility into an attack on the opponent." Meanwhile, some Linke MPs such as Lea Reisner publicly defended Pantisano's original critique.

The weekend's sequence has left Pantisano with an anaemic 53.34 percent mandate, colleagues demanding explanations from him behind closed doors, and a party leadership struggling to reconcile its activist wing with the cold arithmetic of eastern state politics.