Lucy Redler
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
politician, Socialist Alternative activist, and member of the Left Party
The Left (Germany)
The Left , also commonly referred to as the Left Party , is a democratic socialist political party in Germany. The Left is the most left-wing party of the five represented in the Bundestag....
. From 2005 to 2007 Redler served on the executive committee of the Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
section of the Labor and Social Justice List (WASG), and she was its chief candidate in the 2006 Berlin state elections
Berlin state election, 2006
The Berlin state election, 2006, was held on September 17, 2006, to elect members to the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin.After the elections the Social Democratic Party under Klaus Wowereit and the Left Party formed a coalition government....
. The German media has given Redler the nickname "Red Lucy".
Early life
Redler was born on August 17, 1979, in Hann. MündenHann. Münden
Hann. Münden is the German official name of a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. The city is located in the district of Göttingen at the confluence of the Fulda and Werra rivers, which join to form the river Weser. It has 28,000 inhabitants...
near Kassel
Kassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...
in Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...
. She is the daughter of a social work
Social work
Social Work is a professional and academic discipline that seeks to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of an individual, group, or community by intervening through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, and teaching on behalf of those afflicted with poverty or any real or...
er and a pediatric nurse
Child health nursing
Pediatric nursing or child health nursing is the specialty nursing care of infants, children and adolescents. A nurse who specialises in this area is usually referred to as a pediatric nurse, though there are many regional and sub-specialty variations in title...
. She first became active in politics through antifascist
Anti-fascism
Anti-fascism is the opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals, such as that of the resistance movements during World War II. The related term antifa derives from Antifaschismus, which is German for anti-fascism; it refers to individuals and groups on the left of the political...
demonstrations. At the age of 15, she became involved with the group "Youth Against Racism in Europe" (JRE), which was organized by the Trotskyist
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
group Socialist Alternative (SAV) and other sections of the CWI
Committee for a Workers' International
The Committee for a Workers' International is an international association of Trotskyist parties. Members include the Socialist Party of England and Wales, the Socialist Party , the Socialist Party the Democratic Socialist Movement in South Africa and Nigeria and groups using the name Socialist...
. She studied political economy
Political economy
Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...
at the Hamburg University for Economy and Politics.
Political career
Remaining in HamburgHamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
following her graduation, she became a local spokesperson for "Youth against War", an anti-Iraq War group close to the SAV. In the 2002 German federal elections
German federal election, 2002
The 15th German federal election, 2002 was conducted on 22 September 2002, to elect members to the Bundestag of Germany.-Issues and campaign:...
, Redler ran in a Hamburg district as an SAV candidate for the Bundestag
Bundestag
The Bundestag is a federal legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag is established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier...
. In the 2004 Hamburg state election
Hamburg state election, 2004
The Hamburg state election, 2004, was conducted on February 29, 2004, to elect members to the Hamburgische Bürgerschaft of Hamburg...
, she ran on the electoral list
Electoral list
An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election to a post, usually in proportional election systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party or can constitute a group of independent candidates...
of Regenbogen ("Rainbow"), which was a local electoral alliance
Electoral alliance
An electoral alliance may take the form of a bipartisan electoral agreement, electoral agreement, electoral coalition or electoral bloc. It is an association of political parties or individuals which exists solely to stand in elections...
of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), Communist Party
German Communist Party
The German Communist Party is a Marxist-Leninist party in Germany.-History:The DKP was formed in West Germany in 1968, in order to fill the place of the Communist Party of Germany , which had been banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1956...
(DKP) and SAV.
In 2005 Redler moved to Berlin and became editor of the SAV newspaper, Solidarität. In November of that year, she was elected to the executive committee of the WASG's Berlin section. She then ran as the head candidate of the WASG in the September 2006 Berlin state elections
Berlin state election, 2006
The Berlin state election, 2006, was held on September 17, 2006, to elect members to the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin.After the elections the Social Democratic Party under Klaus Wowereit and the Left Party formed a coalition government....
. The Berlin WASG campaign was controversial, since its candidates directly challenged the slate of the PDS, which was allied with the WASG. Redler openly criticized the role of PDS politicians as participants in the state government
Abgeordnetenhaus von Berlin
The Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin is the state parliament for the German state of Berlin, according to the state's constitution. The parliament is based at the building on Niederkirchnerstraße in Mitte which until 1934 was the seat of the lower house of the Preußischer Landtag...
. In November 2006 she was elected to the National Committee of the WASG; however, seven months later the organization voted to merge with the PDS and form the Left Party
The Left (Germany)
The Left , also commonly referred to as the Left Party , is a democratic socialist political party in Germany. The Left is the most left-wing party of the five represented in the Bundestag....
.
Critical of the terms of the WASG-PDS merger, Redler initially attempted to organize a group that was autonomous from the Left Party in Berlin, known as the Berlin Alternative for Solidarity and Justice (BASG). However, in September 2008, the SAV instructed its East German and Berlin members to join the Left Party. Redler applied for membership in the party, which fueled controversy because of her past activities. The issue even appeared in the pages of major newspapers, such as Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
, Die Welt
Die Welt
Die Welt is a German national daily newspaper published by the Axel Springer AG company.It was founded in Hamburg in 1946 by the British occupying forces, aiming to provide a "quality newspaper" modelled on The Times...
and the Berliner Morgenpost
Berliner Morgenpost
Berliner Morgenpost is a German newspaper, based and mainly read in Berlin, where it is the second most read daily newspaper. Founded in 1898 by Leopold Ullstein, it was taken over by Axel Springer AG in 1959. The paper had a circulation of 145,556 issues in 2009, with an estimated 322,000 readers...
. Because of opposition from some leaders of the Left Party, she was not accepted as a member of the party until August 2010.