Bernd Riexinger

Bernd Riexinger (born 30 October 1955) is a German politician of the left party Die Linke and member of the Bundestag representing Baden-Württemberg. From 2012 to 2021 he was of The Left alongside Katja Kipping. Career Riexinger states he comes from a working-class family. As a staunch pacifist, he refused military service in his youth. Riexinger was trained as a bank clerk after secondary school and business school, and was employed by Leonberger Bausparkasse until 1980. From 1980 to 1990 he was on the works council of Leonberger Bausparkasse; there he received further training in labour, collective bargaining, and social law. In 1991 he became a trade union official. Riexinger is a member of the Initiative for networking between trade union leftists and is active in the Social Forum movement in Germany. Political career In 2003, Riexinger was among the initiators of mass protests against the Agenda 2010 of the federal government at that time. He joined Labour and Social Justice (WASG), a left-wing splinter of the Social Democrats. He served as the party's regional chairman in Baden-Württemberg until WASG merged into The Left in 2007. Until 2012, he was executive director of the Stuttgart division of the trade union ver.di, as well as a member of the executive board of The Left in Baden-Württemberg. Riexinger is affiliated with the Socialist Left, a strongly socialist faction within The Left which is classified as left-wing extremist by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. He is thus considered a representative of the left-wing of the party.