Katja Kipping and the missed reckoning: how a Left Party politician retrospectively legitimizes the federal government’s COVID policy - despite RKI files and revealed policy failures
Katja Kipping appears before the Bundestag inquiry commission and calmly explains: the measures were basically good, just not social enough. Lockdowns, mask mandates, school closures? All fundamentally correct – they only needed more money and buffers.
Katja Kipping, born in 1978 in Dresden, is a long-standing leading politician of the party Die Linke. She was a member of the German Bundestag from 2005 to 2021, co-chair of the party from 2012 to 2021 (together with Bernd Riexinger), Social Senator in Berlin (2021–2023), and is today Managing Director and Head of the Department for Social and European Policy at the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband. As a social policy expert focusing on poverty, social infrastructure, and care work, she traditionally positions herself on the political left.
At the Bundestag inquiry commission on the review of the COVID-19 pandemic on June 11, 2026, she appeared as an expert witness and delivered a plea for greater resilience in social systems. Her core message: learning from experiences in order to better manage future crises – with a focus on social inequality, overcrowded housing conditions, exceptions to measures, and buffers in social benefits as well as staffing levels.
Statements in the inquiry commission (11/06/2026)
In the video, Kipping emphasizes five “key highlights”:
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The poor as losers: People with low socioeconomic status had a higher risk of severe outcomes (stress → weakened immune system, cramped living conditions → higher infection load). Measures therefore protected the vulnerable and poor and were thus socially important. At the same time, these very groups were hit particularly hard by income losses and lockdown consequences.
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Cramped housing conditions and homeschooling: Children in confined living situations or in refugee/homeless shelters were disadvantaged. Demand: public learning spaces (schools, libraries) as buffers.
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Special exemptions for contact restrictions: For disabled people with assistance needs, people requiring care, homeless individuals, and children/young people in institutional settings.
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Financial buffers for social benefits and infrastructure: Additional expenses (masks, disinfectants, tablets) while at the same time support systems collapsed (school meals, food banks).
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Staffing buffers in social institutions: Systems must not be “run on the edge” in order to remain functional in crises.
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Her core message remains systemic: the measures were fundamentally correct and protective; they just needed to be implemented in a more socially just and resilient way. She speaks of a “dialectic of experience” but avoids any fundamental questioning of pandemic policy.
Kipping’s positions during the pandemic
During the actual crisis (2020–2022), Kipping was a clear supporter of strict measures. She called for a “solidarity lockdown” with increased social benefits, higher short-time work allowances, a wealth levy for the rich, and stricter workplace inspections. She supported the Zero-COVID strategy and promoted vaccination as a “moral duty of social solidarity.” She mainly criticized the government for acting too hesitantly or not socially enough – not for encroachments on fundamental rights.
Quotes from that period:
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In favor of stricter measures to keep infection rates low and prevent mutations.
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“The government slept through the summer.” (criticism of too lax policies).
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Support for curfews and lockdowns combined with social cushioning measures.
Comparison with RKI files and leaked/released documents
Here Kipping’s analysis becomes fragile – and government criticism urgent. The RKI protocols (crisis staff minutes) and other documents show a picture of politically driven panic, lack of evidence, and disregard for internal doubts:
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Masks and FFP2 mandates: The RKI repeatedly stated there was “no evidence for the use of FFP2 masks outside occupational safety contexts.” Nevertheless, broad mask mandates (including FFP2) were politically enforced. Kipping speaks of protective measures – without acknowledging that central instruments were scientifically weakly justified.
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Lockdowns and consequences: Minutes noted that lockdowns in some cases had “more severe consequences than COVID itself” (in the context of global considerations, including Africa). School closures and contact restrictions particularly affected vulnerable groups (children in cramped housing, socially disadvantaged people) – exactly the dialectic Kipping describes. But instead of viewing this as collateral damage of evidence-based policy, the files point to a blind flight: political pressure on the RKI, lack of proportionality, and disregard for long-term damage (psychological, educational, economic).
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“Pandemic of the unvaccinated” and vaccination pressure: Internal doubts about the narrative and about transmission protection through vaccines. Nevertheless, massive social exclusion occurred. Kipping promoted vaccination as solidarity – without later qualification.
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Social imbalance: Yes, poorer people and those in cramped conditions faced higher risks – also because policies imposed blanket measures without precise differentiation. The RKI files underline that many restrictions were not evidence-based but politically motivated. Kipping’s demand for more buffers and exemptions sounds reasonable, but obscures the core question: were the sweeping restrictions of fundamental rights ever proportionate and necessary?
Critical assessment
In her appearance, Kipping remains a loyal representative of the social-democratic left establishment: she does not criticize the authoritarian, evidence-poor crisis management of the federal government (under Merkel, then Scholz/Lauterbach), but instead demands more state, more money, more buffers for precisely the system that failed. The pandemic is reinterpreted as justification for expanding the welfare state – rather than as a lesson in state failure, panic-driven policymaking, censorship, and social division.
The RKI files reveal: the government instrumentalized science where it suited its agenda and ignored it where it did not. Internal doubts within the RKI were not made transparent. Fundamental rights were massively restricted with at times questionable or insufficient evidence. Children, people with mental health burdens, small businesses, and socially disadvantaged groups paid the highest price – not primarily due to the virus, but due to policy.
Kipping’s focus on resilience through more resources is understandable but insufficient. Genuine lessons would need to include: more transparency, independence of institutions like the RKI, strict proportionality checks, no blanket restrictions of freedoms without robust data, an end to moralization and social division. Instead, she offers a soft form of systemic critique that relieves the actual decision-makers of responsibility.
The inquiry commission risks becoming an exercise in self-justification. As long as voices like Kipping’s dominate – portraying the measures as fundamentally correct and only demanding social adjustments – there will be no real reckoning. Germany has mainly learned from COVID how easily fundamental rights and evidence-poor policies can be sacrificed under the guise of “protection.” This should not be answered with more bureaucracy and tax money, but with greater skepticism toward state power.
Author: AI-Translation - АИИ |
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