Berlin election | Rüdiger Deißler: Turned a few wheels for the unemployed

Rüdiger Deißler is not a divisive person, but he has his own opinion on many questions. Photo: Photo: Linke/Plaf Krostitz After 12.2 percent in the Berlin House of Representatives election in February 2023, the Berlin Left can now, according to forecasts, expect up to 23 percent of the vote in the vote on September 20th. This means that it will have a much stronger presence in the House of Representatives and will certainly also be more strongly represented in the twelve district council assemblies (BVV) in the capital.

The left-wing faction in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf currently consists of four comrades. The district councilor Rüdiger Deißler (Left) expects that there will be seven or eight people after September 20th. The Left would then probably have a right to occupy one of the city council positions in the district office for the first time in this West Berlin district.

Deißler himself will not be a member of the BVV again. After five years there, the now 70-year-old says: “I still want to enjoy my pension. There were always a lot of appointments. Deißler is not running for re-election. The most he can imagine is taking on the role of citizen's representative on the BVV's urban development committee in the future.

In recent years, Deißler has been involved in the district's environmental protection and monument advisory board, and was also a member of the memorial plaque commission and the three committees for health, social affairs and urban development. In the Complaints and Submissions Committee, he was also the committee chairman who chaired the meetings. For example, it was about helping those in need who still didn't have the amount they were entitled to in their account 17 weeks after they applied for housing benefit. When the complaint from those affected came before the committee, it usually happened very quickly, Deißler is pleased. The same thing happened with delayed payments of basic security in old age. Something could be moved there.

Deißler was still working in his first year at BVV. He looked after the homeless. Then he retired at the age of 66. Deißler is opposed to the Left's participation in government on principle, "because almost nothing of their own program gets passed," as he says. »Opposition with strong pressure from the street brings more. I am firmly convinced of that.”

"I was always on the Wagenknecht wing, but I didn't take part in the split."

In the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf left-wing faction, the three women represented there apart from Deißler were not only significantly younger than him, but they also had different cultural backgrounds and sometimes represented different political positions than he did within the left-wing spectrum. Deißler describes himself as a “left-wing populist” who prefers a short, concise speech that can also be bluntly worded. "I was always on the Wagenknecht wing, but I didn't take part in the split," he says. What BSW founder Sahra Wagenknecht is now saying no longer corresponds largely to his own views. Deißler was on the left and remained on the left.

“I think it was right that I did it,” says Deißler, summing up his five years in the BVV. He tried to help the unemployed and tenants and was "able to turn a few small wheels." What was the left-wing faction in the BVV able to achieve? “Not much,” Deißler admits openly. There is an ombudsman at the job center as a contact person for the unemployed who are having difficulties with the job center. The left-wing faction has created two new environmental protection areas in which luxury modernizations are excluded. There are now nine such environmental protection areas. In the opinion of the left-wing faction, the district should be under environmental protection across the board. “There are poor people in Grunewald too,” explains Deißler. At least 20 percent of the population in this middle-class district of Berlin only has a low income.

Left-wing faction leader Frederike-Sophie Gronde-Brunner is running again for the BVV and also for the House of Representatives. In addition, the Left district chairman Johannes Kolleck is running, a proven expert in urban development, as Deißler enviously acknowledges. “I will continue to fight with the tenants for every square meter of living space and every euro in rent – ​​so that investors don’t decide about our district,” Kolleck promises the voters.

Deißler also praises Martina Dierßen, a lawyer who worked for the Verdi service union before retiring, and who will certainly be an excellent successor on the BVV's social committee. There are 15 other candidates on the district list.

There is a lot for you to do in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. 85 percent of the population in Berlin live on rent and, according to the Left, are “abandoned.” The party complains that in no other Berlin district are the asking rents, i.e. the prices for new rentals, as high as here. The Left promises: “We pursue rent usury and take consistent action against speculative vacancies and illegal holiday apartments. We are expanding environmental protection areas in order to prevent luxury modernization and furnished temporary living." Deißler concludes: "Parliamentary and extra-parliamentary activities must be linked much more closely. When you immerse yourself in time-consuming parliamentary work, there is always the danger of neglecting the extra-parliamentary struggle. If in doubt, a committee meeting may have to be canceled in favor of taking part in an important rally to preserve the Russian House or in a tenant demonstration.

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