Photo: Sophie Koch on Facebook, 16 June 2023
Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has once again disappointed conservative voters—this time by appointing a radical-left activist from the SPD as the government’s new “Queer Commissioner,” in a move critics are calling a gift to the woke wing of German politics.
Sophie Koch, 31, replaces Green politician Sven Lehmann in the post, but instead of downsizing the role or scrapping it altogether, Merz has expanded it—creating a new, additional post within his government. The CDU leader who once vowed to bring order to immigration policy and push back against progressive excess has instead handed more power to someone known for insulting his own party and promoting extremist slogans.
Koch, who until recently worked for a taxpayer-funded LGBT NGO in Saxony, has made headlines for openly mocking the CDU and celebrating their declining support in eastern Germany. “Never again CDU,” she beamed in a now-viral video, reacting to falling poll numbers for the party in Saxony. She has also accused the CDU of abandoning “the democratic centre” over migration policy.
Her social media goes further still: her Facebook profile displays the far-left slogan “Antifascism is manual work,” widely understood in Germany as a veiled call to violence against right-leaning opponents. The quote appears with an image of crochet work—an apparent attempt to soften its tone.
Koch has also declared she will not engage with AfD members in the Bundestag, telling a youth publication: “I don’t shake hands with the Nazis of the AfD.”
All this makes her appointment not only a baffling decision for a supposedly centre-right government—but yet another example of Merz bending to the cultural agenda of the Left. It follows a string of betrayals on migration, where Merz backtracked on a promised “de facto entry ban” and now aims merely to reduce asylum numbers below 100,000, far above levels many voters find acceptable.
Despite serious recent crimes committed by failed asylum seekers—including the murders of a toddler and a police officer—Merz has refused to cooperate with the anti-immigration AfD, even as his own policies were originally closer to theirs—in rhetoric, at least.
In appointing Koch, Merz has shown once again that he would rather win applause from Germany’s activist class than deliver the conservative course correction voters were promised.