This is a machine translation of Der Spiegel's cover story, 29 October.
https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/index-2026-45.html
Berlin Left Party frontwoman
Elif Eralp reveals fear of terror sympathizers
Elif Eralp wants to be Berlin's ruling mayor. But in an internal note, the left-wing politician shows that she is afraid of terrorist sympathizers with contacts with Hamas. Can anyone like that be responsible for security in the capital? The SPIEGEL title story.
From Christoph Hickmann, Marina Kormbaki, Ulrich Kraetzer, Anna Reimann, Marc Röhlig and Hannes Schrader
29.10.2026, 08.04 am • from DER SPIEGEL 45/2026
On Wednesday morning at 9.46 a.m., an email arrives at the SPIEGEL Capital Office, from which Elif Eralp Certainly not wanted her to be sent. The mail contains a document in which the Berlin Left frontwoman reveals that she is afraid. To herself and her family. The document discloses how it is really about internal security in Germany's capital.
She and her husband, Eralp writes, are “frightened of these people.” This refers to pro-Palestinian terrorist sympathizers with contacts to Hamas. The woman who wants to bego mayor obviously has so much fear of them that they don't even call their names, don't want to talk publicly about them.
The document it's about is the authorized version of a detailed interview two SPIEGEL people conducted with Eralp on Monday morning, two days before the mail. After that, the usual procedure began after such conversations: The SPIEGEL people turned it into a written version and sent it to Eralp's press officer. The interviewee was then able to edit this version, adjust his own answers. So far, so normal. But on Eralp's side, an oversight happens.
The Word document, which arrives at SPIEGEL on Wednesday morning, includes comments, deletions, notes that Eralp, your speaker and at least one other person did while editing. This, unadorned, is captured how the woman who wants to rule Berlin really feels in this city: no longer safe. She is afraid of people with whom some of her party friends maintain close contacts.
"I cannot put myself and my family in danger for the MIRROR," writes Eralp.
That's how far it's come.
For a long time, it has been an open secret in the capital that the security authorities only get to grips with the situation here with difficulty. That there are neighborhoods, streets, milieus where the state has to fight for control. In which own rules apply and the German rule of law does not count much.
This becomes publicly visible, for example, when Israeli flags are burning in the city. Or if a 100-kilogram gold coin is stolen from one of the most important museums in the city. Then the capital briefly spooks. Otherwise, it seems, many in Berlin have arranged themselves with the fact that both organized crime and organized hatred of Israel have spread here.
There are links from both milieus to the left. When Eralp won the election to the House of Representatives in September, a city-famous clan chief and a publicly known Hamas sympathizer dived on an election night Left- Election party in Neukölln on. Since then, the headlines haven't ripped off.
Eralp tried to keep all this as far away as possible – and from the exploratory talks on a red-green-red state government. Eralp admitted mistakes in the left, distanced himself from individual party friends, confessed to Israel's right to exist.
The Anti-Semit in their own ranks, their people's contacts with terrorist sympathizers? Everything reprehensible, everything problematic, but just individual cases, so her message could be summarized. Nothing you can't get to grips with. Not a big, no comprehensive problem.
Now it turns out: The problem is much bigger than thought. And the question arises: Can a woman who is too afraid to confirm the name of a terrorist sympathizer in an interview be responsible for the safety of all Berliners?
Monday morning, shortly after half past eleven, Eralp's office in the Berlin House of Representatives. The candidate greets her visit from the SPIEGEL with a slightly cold. For the photographer, she quickly clears her pink bicycle helmet from the picture. On the desk is a book by economist Isabella M. Weber: “Anti-fascist economic policy.”
How does she find the book? She just got that, Eralp says. No time had yet to look in.
Then the interview starts. The SPIEGEL asks about anti-Semitism in the ranks of the left, after the MPs Vanessa Emde, the states deny the right to exist and thus obviously target Israel.
Eralp answers calmly, matter-of-factly. Her line: She was not aware of the full extent of the problem. She knew, of course, Eralp that especially in the district association Neukölln many of her party friends on the topic Palestine Be very committed – but she did not think that there could also be border crossings at individual events during the election campaign.
At this point, SPIEGEL ponders: “By this you mean the terrorist sympathizer Ibrahim Ibrahim, who the chief planner of the Hamas raid on Israel on 7. October 2023 has called ‘martyr’s heroes’ and was at the election party in Neukölln.«
Eralp’s answer, which should not be quoted here formally due to lack of authorization, but which simply cannot be described differently: yes.
After that, the conversation continues. Eralp seems annoyed at some point that it remains so long on the subject of anti-Semitism. She would rather talk even longer about her heart issues, about rent policy and how she wants to expropriate large real estate companies to nationalize their apartments. After an hour, the conversation is over, the SPIEGEL people say goodbye.
“What am I doing now? I should never have promised this interview.”
—Elif Eralp in an internal note
The next day, Tuesday morning, they send the written version to Eralp's spokesman. Actually, it is agreed that he will return the authorized interview on Tuesday evening. But the matter is delayed. It'll take until the next day.
When the SPIEGEL people open the file on Wednesday morning, they immediately notice the comments and annotations in the text and next to the text, from Eralp's office, her spokesman and from Kerstin Wolter, the state chairman of the Berlin Left. This is unusual. And something else is unusual.
According to the usual rules, the interviewees are not allowed to change the questions of the journalists, only in their own answers. But in the authorized version, a question and an answer are deleted: the question of the terrorist sympathizer Ibrahim. And Eralp's "Yes."
Eralp apparently has this a note written in the text: “There is a PROBLEM”, it says in square brackets. Eralp then mentions a man’s first name and writes that he “does not want to, my husband, and neither do I, call concrete names, he is afraid of these people and so am I.” With that, Eralp reveals what it looks like in her. And how she wrestles with herself.
Her spokesman said, "I can't delete questions from the journalists," Eralp writes. “What am I doing now? I should never have promised this interview.”
Then she makes reference to a recommendation that the state criminal investigation office apparently gave her in the past when it came to her public approach to the issue of organized crime (OK). “The LKA said at the time that they recommend never to give specific names. Back then, it was about OK. Now it’s about people with contacts with Hamas. I can't put myself and my family in danger for the SPIEGEL. What are we gonna do now? Cancel the whole interview?"
At the latest here, Eralp's tone of voice seems downright desperate. She's looking for a way out. She writes: “I have so far called several incidents, among other things. Ibrahin condemns this in general, now it is present individually."
Perhaps that is the most important sentence of the whole passage. Because he shows how great Eralp's fear is. She does not dare to confirm a name that the MIRROR calls her – because it would be so “present”. Here writes a woman who is apparently convinced to fear the good of her loved ones and her own.
You have to go to those of Joanne K. Rowling Created world of Harry Potter think. The magicians in this world do not dare to pronounce the name of the feared dark magician Lord Voldemort, because they fear, then bad things will happen to them.
But this is not the world of Harry Potter, this is the Federal Republic of Germany. Law and order apply here. Or?
What is revealed in the few sentences of the Elif Eralp is an abyss. In a city where the potential next head of state writes something like this, not in her diary, but in a document she shares with her own people, with her spokesman, her country chairman, can no longer seriously speak of internal security. That is why SPIEGEL has decided to make the process public.
In a mail, Eralp's spokesman told SPIEGEL on Wednesday afternoon that Eralp, as a mayoral candidate, had been subjected to daily insults, threats and hostilities for months. “In view of this general threat, security agencies advise against addressing individual political problems in public statements, especially when media reporting on their alleged links to organised crime or terrorist organizations.” That is why Eralp’s office has asked SPIEGEL to “take into account Ms Eralp’s personal security interests.”
As the ruling mayor, Eralp would be the head of the State government, would determine the guidelines of the policy and, for example, use the interior senator responsible for the police. It would thus at least indirectly set the security policy course in the city. It would be intolerable if a ruling mayor made important political statements or possibly decisions dependent on her being personally or close family members afraid of certain people or groups. And she would be under pressure as a representative of a party that is critical of the police in parts anyway.
There were reasons that spoke against a publication, especially Eralp's security concerns. But the political significance of her note weighs heavier from the point of view of the editors. According to SPIEGEL, the public must know about it.
The process shows how far the power of extremist and criminal circles now extends. Berlin has been fighting clan crime for years, but despite spectacular judicial actions such as the seizure of 77 properties in the milieu, the problem does not get a complete grip on. In addition, gangs of the Turkish-Kurdish Gen Z Mafia appeared, which fired several shots at shops to extort protection money. Berlin, so much can be said, is also the capital of crime.
What are these people Eralp is afraid of?
Ibrahim Ibrahim is considered one of the most important propagandists of the radical pro-Palestine community in Berlin, the scene whose followers repeatedly attract attention with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic slogans. Ibrahim, a leading figure of the United Palestinian National Committee, exerts his influence: VPNK. The Berlin constitutional protection has classified the grouping as extremist. The VPNK is therefore the umbrella organization for supporters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Hamas.
The role of the Islamist Hamas has been since its terror attack on Israel on 7 at the latest. October 2023 well known. The secular-oriented PFLP, founded in 1967, gained sad notoriety in Germany when some of its terrorists kidnapped the Lufthansa aircraft »Landshut« in 1977. The EU and the US have classified the PFLP as a terrorist organization.
Ibrahim comes from the PFLP according to findings of the security authorities. He also sympathizes with Hamas. The chief planner of the raid on Israel, which has since been killed Yahya Sinwar, he celebrated as a “martyr’s hero.”
The security authorities regularly deal with Ibrahim because of Ibrahim's propaganda activities, according to information from the SPIEGEL. There are no indications that the 70-year-old may have been involved in violent actions or even in attack planning in Germany, it is said.
Ibrahim himself, in a recent statement, resisted a "lump sum general suspicion" against him. "I firmly reject the accusation of supporting terrorism," he said. “I reject anti-Semitism, racism, religious discrimination, and any form of ethnic exclusion.” The killing and expulsion of Palestinian civilians was condemned by Ibrahim. He did not mention the Hamas attack on Israel.
Eralp’s fear of Ibrahim and the milieu of pro-Palestinian terrorist sympathizers is by no means typical of the Berlin Left. Parts of Eralp's party are seeking proximity to Ibrahim and his VPNK, they are partly openly cooperating with each other. Touch fears? Missing indication....
....MUCH MORE
Original -https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/linkenpolitikerin-elif-eralp-offenbart-angst-vor-terrorsympathisanten-a-94a0c067-ce3d-4435-9e5d-0d2dc2fbb81e
