‘It’s in our DNA to be anti-fascist’: Germany’s leftwing ‘TikTok queen’ Heidi Reichinnek

Heidi Reichinnek’s party, Die Linke, has grown its vote count by about 4% in the last four years. Photograph: Christian Jungeblodt/The Guardian

The latest tattoo on Heidi Reichinnek’s lower right arm reads “Angry Woman”. A “present to myself”, she says, after the unexpected return to the German parliament of her party, Die Linke (The Left), in February’s elections.

Months before the vote, it had been widely predicted the far-left party, successor to the east German communists, would be decimated. But the naysayers were proved wrong: Die Linke won nearly 9% of the vote, an increase of almost 4% on the previous election, giving them a healthy 64 seats in the new Bundestag.