# Mandy Eißing

# Mandy Eißing

Mandy Eißing (born 31 August 1976 in Altenburg) is a German politician of [Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke) and a member of the Bundestag. The Bundestag lists her occupation as hairdresser and records the start of her membership as 25 March 2025, in the 21st electoral term. She holds her seat from third place on the party’s state list in Thuringia, after standing in constituency 194, Saalfeld-Rudolstadt – Saale-Holzland-Kreis – Saale-Orla-Kreis.

She finished Realschule in 1993, began a hairdressing apprenticeship that year, received her journeyman’s certificate in 1996, and worked in the trade until 2009. From 2009 to 2017 she was a constituency staff member for Frank Tempel, then a member of the Bundestag, and since 2017 she has been the local assistant in Thuringia to [Martin Schirdewan](/people/martin-schirdewan), a member of the [European Parliament](/organizations/european-parliament). In Altenburg she sat on the city council from 2009 to 2019 and has been on the board of the district youth ring since 2009; she has been a member of the Altenburger Land district council since 2014. Inside Die Linke she served on the Thuringia state committee from 2010 to 2014, has sat on the party council since 2015 and on its presidium since 2017, and was a board member of the [Rosa Luxemburg Foundation](/organizations/rosa-luxemburg-foundation)’s Thuringia branch from 2019 to 2023.

The 2025 German federal election was held on 23 February 2025. Die Linke took 8.8 percent of second votes nationwide and 64 seats, 25 more than in 2021. In Thuringia the party’s second-vote share was 15.2 percent (200,688 votes). In constituency 194, Eißing received 21,114 first votes (12.3 percent), behind Michael Kaufmann of [the Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany (76,204 votes, 44.5 percent) and [Diana Herbstreuth](/people/diana-herbstreuth) of the [Christian Democratic Union](/organizations/christian-democratic-union-of-germany) (35,224 votes, 20.6 percent). Die Linke’s second votes in that constituency were 23,079 (13.5 percent).

In the Bundestag she is a full member of the Committee on Education, Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and a deputy member of the Interior Committee. She is also a deputy chair of the Berlin–Taipei parliamentary friendship group, the Northern Adriatic parliamentary group, and the German–South Asian parliamentary group. Her published disclosures list continued unpaid roles on the Altenburger Land district council, including youth-welfare committees, and on the board of the district youth ring.

## Early life and hairdressing

Mandy Eißing was born on 31 August 1976 in Altenburg, in eastern Thuringia. The town was then part of the German Democratic Republic. She later said she had been born and had grown up in the rural east and still lived there, describing herself as “wirklich eine Ossi” (“really an East German”). She is married and has two children. The Bundestag biography, which the parliament notes rests on the member’s own information, records her occupation as hairdresser (*Friseurin*) and does not list a university degree.

### Education

In 1993 she completed a Realschule leaving certificate in Altenburg, the intermediate secondary qualification, in the same year she turned seventeen. That was three years after German reunification. Published biographies do not name the school, her earlier grades, or any further schooling. The account she has given of those years is social rather than academic. In a March 2025 portrait she told Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk that she knew the breaks and the fear of losing a livelihood in the east, and that she had watched whole firms and whole families fall apart. She presented that experience as the background of a life spent in the region, not as a separate school memoir. Abgeordnetenwatch, which publishes a text she supplied, likewise begins her public biography with her birth in Altenburg and moves directly to the hairdressing apprenticeship, without a school name.

### Hairdressing trade

In 1993 she began an apprenticeship as a hairdresser. She finished in 1996 with the *Gesellenbrief*, the craft’s journeyman certificate, and the Bundestag entry lists work in the hairdressing trade from 1996 until 2009. Counting from the start of training, she has described sixteen years in private-sector hairdressing. MDR reported the same span and described her as an employed hairdresser in Thuringia. Two of her customers, she said, were members of a state parliament, and she treated the salon as a place where politics was discussed in ordinary language: “Where does one talk about politics best? In the pub and at the hairdresser.”

She has tied the decision to leave the trade for party politics to pay and to the household budget. She told MDR that she had to apply for social benefits despite hard work, and that she and her husband, also a craftsman, together earned too little to pay kindergarten fees. “That politicized me—this injustice, the debate about social justice and the growing gap between rich and poor,” she said. She joined Die Linke in 2009, the year the hairdressing employment in the Bundestag biography ends and her work as constituency assistant to the Bundestag member Frank Tempel begins.

The trade remained how she was introduced once she was a candidate. In a 5 February 2025 interview the *Ostthüringer Zeitung* described the then 48-year-old as a hairdresser from Altenburg; the headline quoted her saying that injustice, including between east and west, had to be ended at last. After the election, MDR noted that a member without a degree was unusual in the Bundestag and reported that about nine in ten members were university graduates. Eißing named the shop assistant, the dental assistant and the hairdresser as the people she had in mind—“those who are always there, but whom nobody sees any more”—and said she was one of them.

## Local politics in the Altenburger Land

### Altenburg city council

Mandy Eißing's municipal record is centred on Altenburg, the seat of the rural district of Altenburger Land in Thuringia. The city's statistical yearbook for 2014 lists her among the councillors of Die Linke on 1 January 2014, during the term that followed the city election of 7 June 2009, and again on 1 June 2014, at the start of the term elected on 25 May 2014. In 2009 Die Linke received 8,837 votes, 24.1 percent, and nine of 36 seats; in 2014 it received 7,562 votes, 22.0 percent, and eight. Her biography on the website of the Bundestag, which the parliament states is based on members' own information, dates the city-council mandate from 2009 to 2019.

She was not re-elected on 26 May 2019. The *Leipziger Volkszeitung* reported that Eißing, described as a long-serving member of the Left group, missed a return to the city council, as did deputy council chair Barbara Plötner and Harald Stegmann, while winning a seat on the district council. Die Linke's Altenburg list fell to 5,187 votes, 13.7 percent, and five seats. Altenburg.tv's preliminary list of those seats named Kati Klaubert, Jörg Jablonowski, Andreas Huhn, Birgit Klaubert and Michaele Sojka.

### District council

The Kreistag of Altenburger Land has 46 elected members. The district's SessionNet register records Eißing as a member of the Die Linke group and of the Kreistag in the term that ended on 31 May 2019, and it has no entry for her in the 2009–2014 term.

At the district election of 26 May 2019 she was returned. The election committee recorded 43,361 voters out of 77,866 eligible, a turnout of 55.7 percent. Die Linke received 17,997 votes and seven seats, and Eißing 1,951 personal votes, the fourth-highest total on its list. The *Leipziger Volkszeitung* named her among the seven Left members of the new Kreistag, with Ralf Plötner, Eileen Nebel, Michaele Sojka, Frank Tempel, Klaus Hübschmann and Ute Lukasch.

She was elected again on 26 May 2024. Of 73,887 eligible voters, 43,371 took part (58.7 percent). Die Linke received 12,946 votes and five of the 46 seats; the Alternative for Germany won 14, the Christian Democratic Union 13, and the Social Democratic Party five. Eißing received 1,254 votes, the third-highest personal total on the Left list, after Frank Tempel (5,977) and Michaele Sojka (1,283). SessionNet lists her as a district councillor for the term from 1 June 2024 to 31 May 2029.

At the constitutive sitting on 26 June 2024 the Kreistag appointed her first substitute for Frank Tempel on the district executive committee (Kreisausschuss) and elected her a voting member of the youth-welfare committee, with 35 votes to Susann Seifert's 34 as substitute. The Bundestag register of disclosable interests, as shown on her biography with a stated update of 29 October 2026, lists the Kreistag seat and the post of deputy chair of the Left group until 30 August 2025. In the same term SessionNet also lists her as a substitute on the committees for schools, culture and sport and for the economy, environment and construction, on the sports advisory board, and on the works committee of the district waste and roads service.

### Youth welfare and civic groups

SessionNet records her as a voting member of the youth-welfare committee (Jugendhilfeausschuss) from 25 June 2014 to 31 May 2019, and again from 2 July 2019, when it also records the function of second deputy chair. On 8 August 2024 the committee elected Frank Tanzmann chair, Andreas Kriesche first deputy chair and Eißing second deputy chair, and placed her on new subcommittees for the youth-support plan, for childcare, and for *Hilfen zur Erziehung* (assistance with upbringing) and other youth-welfare tasks.

On 13 May 2026 it moved her from full membership to substitute status on the childcare subcommittee, with Max Bretzmann as the full member, and made the same change on the youth-support-plan subcommittee in favour of Susann Seifert. The SessionNet entry last changed on 27 October 2026 still lists her as a voting member of the *Hilfen zur Erziehung* subcommittee. The Bundestag disclosure instead lists her as chair of the *Hilfen zur Erziehung* committee until 30 June 2026 and as its deputy chair from 1 July 2026, and still lists her as deputy chair of the youth-welfare committee.

She has also sat on the board of the Kreisjugendring Altenburger Land, a registered association of youth groups, initiatives and associations that says it represents their interests, and those of children and young people, toward local government. Its website records that the members' meeting of 24 November 2021 elected an honorary board including Eißing, identified with Linksjugend ['solid], together with Andreas Kriesche, Anja-Maria Schnoor and Susann Borowansky. The Bundestag biography dates that board membership from 2009 and also lists membership of the Aktionsbündnis für Demokratie und Solidarität Altenburger Land. The daily *nd* described the alliance as backed by democratic parties and non-profit associations, and reported that it called the counter-demonstration in Altenburg on 16 July 2020 against a rally of the Alternative for Germany, with about 1,200 people taking part; it quoted spokesperson Torge Dermitzel, not Eißing.

## Party work and staff roles

### Constituency and European-office staff

From 2009 to 2017 Eißing was a constituency staff member (*Wahlkreismitarbeiterin*) for Frank Tempel, a Bundestag member of Die Linke. Tempel, a criminal investigator from Thuringia, won a seat in 2009, held it again in 2013, and in the 18th term (2013–2017) sat via the state list for Greiz–Altenburger Land. The same 2016 profile called him the group’s drug-policy spokesperson, deputy chair of the Interior Committee and deputy group chair. Staff who support the mandate are paid by the Bundestag administration, which does not pass the staff allowance to the member.

Her Bundestag biography states that since 2017 she has been the local assistant (*lokale Assistentin*) of Martin Schirdewan. The disclosure of work before her own membership gives the same title, with the employer named as Martin Schirdewan, MEP, Brussels. Schirdewan took his seat in the European Parliament on 15 November 2017, succeeding [Fabio De Masi](/people/fabio-de-masi), who had been elected to the Bundestag on 24 September 2017; until then Schirdewan had headed the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung’s Brussels office. A notice of the Altenburger Land district association, dated 24 January 2018, listed Eißing with Karin Schrappe and Michael Bicker as local assistants at the office Schirdewan shared with Gabi Zimmer at Geleitstraße 8 in Weimar, open three weekdays as a contact point. In February 2025 the *Ostthüringer Zeitung* called her his office manager in Thuringia (*Thüringer Büroleiterin*); the Bundestag texts do not use that title.

### Party council and state bodies

The biography, taken from the member’s own information, also lists her on Die Linke’s Thuringia state committee (*Landesausschuss*) from 2010 to 2014, on the federal party council (*Parteirat*) since 2015, and on its presidium since 2017.

Under the federal statute the Parteirat—the Bundesausschuss until a renaming settled in 2024—is an organ of the whole party, with consultative, supervisory and initiative functions toward the national executive (*Parteivorstand*), and is charged with drawing the state associations closer together. Meeting at least twice a year, it decides on basic political and organisational questions, the annual financial plan, matters the executive refers because of their political weight or cost, and campaigns that would bind substantial resources in the state associations. It elects the party’s representatives to the Party of the European Left and proposes names for the federal list at European elections. Voting members serve two calendar years: 60 from the state associations, twelve from nationwide groupings, six from the executive and two from the youth organisation. A presidium chosen from the council convenes and chairs meetings until the next council is constituted. The Bundesausschuss formed in March 2024 remained the Parteirat, under a transitional rule, until the first quarter of 2026.

The published lists name Eißing as a Thuringia representative for 2016–2017, 2018–2019, 2020–2021 and 2022–2023. She was not on the presidium elected on 20–21 February 2016; the council elected her to it on 23 June 2018 and again on 19 September 2020, and the 2022–2023 presidium still listed her for Thuringia. Copies of the 2024–2025 page archived on 7 December 2024 and 12 February 2026 still place her on the council for Thuringia and on a presidium with Gunhild Böth, Cornelia Swillus-Knöchel, Martin Günther, Lars Hilbig and Hermann Schaus. By 3 May 2026, and on the party’s current page, she is on neither the Thuringia list nor the presidium. “Since 2017” in the biography is earlier than the June 2018 presidium election the party records; “since 2015” fits the 2016–2017 list, the oldest term still posted.

### Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung

The Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Thüringen e.V. is a registered association in the nationwide network of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. It traces itself to the Jenaer Forum für Bildung und Wissenschaft, founded in Jena in May 1992, and describes its work as left-wing political education with local partners, open beyond the party except to views it calls racist, nationalist, antisemitic or otherwise contemptuous.

Eißing was elected to the board at the 2019 members’ assembly, in a list that names Lena Güngör as chair and Christian Engelhardt as deputy chair. The assembly of 29 November 2021, at the Akademiehotel in Jena and shortened because of coronavirus restrictions, re-elected her; the report identifies her as from Altenburg. On 21 November 2023, at Haus Dacheröden in Erfurt, the assembly chose a new board, discharged the outgoing board for 2022 and 2023, and thanked Eißing and Stefanie Kosmalski as they left. The Bundestag biography dates the board membership 2019–2023, matching those reports, and the accounts of the assemblies in December 2024 and June 2025 do not list her.

## The 2025 Bundestag election

### Nomination

The 2025 German federal election was held on 23 February 2025. In Thuringia, Die Linke prepared its state list at a party conference on 21 December 2024 in the Volkshaus in Sömmerda. A news photograph from that day shows Mandy Eißing speaking about her application for third place while delegates drew up the list for the federal election.

The published list placed [Bodo Ramelow](/people/bodo-ramelow) first; he was also the candidate in constituency 192, Erfurt – Weimar – Weimarer Land II. [Donata Vogtschmidt](/people/donata-vogtschmidt) was second and the candidate in constituency 188, Eichsfeld – Nordhausen – Kyffhäuserkreis. Eißing was third and the candidate in constituency 194, Saalfeld-Rudolstadt – Saale-Holzland-Kreis – Saale-Orla-Kreis, the seat covering those three eastern districts. Frank Tempel, the candidate in constituency 193, was fourth, and the list ran to a tenth place.

Voters cast two ballots. The first vote selects a constituency candidate. The second selects a party’s state list, which is closed: the party fixes the order, and a voter cannot reorder it. From this election a party candidate wins the constituency seat only with the most first votes and with that seat covered by the party’s second votes in the Land (*Zweitstimmendeckung*). Second votes decide how many seats a party receives in the Bundestag. Eißing, from Altenburg, was therefore standing both for a direct mandate in a constituency that does not include her home town and for a numbered place on the statewide list.

The *Ostthüringer Zeitung* reported the next morning that she had spent a long election night in Saalfeld and that third place on the list was enough for a seat in Berlin. Its photograph from the Haskala in Saalfeld shows her with Landtag member Katharina König-Preuss and Daniel Starost, a deputy state chair of Die Linke.

### Constituency 194

Constituency 194 had 211,519 people eligible to vote. Turnout was 81.6 percent, or 172,602 voters, 5.7 percentage points higher than in 2021.

Of 171,334 valid first votes, Michael Heinz Kaufmann of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) received 76,204, or 44.5 percent. Diana Herbstreuth of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) was second with 35,224 votes (20.6 percent). Die Linke, whose candidate was Eißing, received 21,114 (12.3 percent). The [Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany) (SPD) received 14,261 (8.3 percent) and the Bündnis [Sahra Wagenknecht](/people/sahra-wagenknecht) (BSW) 12,415 (7.2 percent). Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens) took 4,340 (2.5 percent), the [Free Voters](/organizations/free-voters) 3,941 (2.3 percent) and the Free Democratic Party 3,835 (2.2 percent). The Federal Returning Officer recorded Kaufmann, named there as Prof. Dr. Michael Heinz Kaufmann, as elected in the constituency, and Herbstreuth as the runner-up.

Against 2021, the AfD’s first-vote share rose by 15.2 percentage points and the SPD’s fell by 10.4. Die Linke’s share was nearly flat, up 0.2 points, and the CDU’s was down 0.4. The BSW had no 2021 comparison.

On 171,441 valid second votes the order was similar, with Die Linke slightly stronger on the list ballot than on the candidate ballot: AfD 73,577 (42.9 percent), CDU 30,756 (17.9 percent), Die Linke 23,079 (13.5 percent), BSW 17,013 (9.9 percent) and SPD 12,907 (7.5 percent). The Greens received 5,056 (2.9 percent) and the FDP 4,811 (2.8 percent). Die Linke’s second-vote share was 2.2 points above 2021; the AfD’s was 14.7 points higher and the SPD’s 13.7 points lower. Kaufmann’s plurality was covered by the AfD’s second-vote seats in Thuringia, so he took the constituency seat. Eißing’s 12.3 percent left her behind both Kaufmann and Herbstreuth. Herbstreuth nevertheless entered the Bundestag from second place on the CDU state list.

### State list and the Thuringia result

Statewide, 1,652,462 people were eligible and turnout was 80.7 percent. Of 1,324,160 valid second votes, the AfD received 510,527 (38.6 percent), the CDU 246,065 (18.6 percent) and Die Linke 200,688 (15.2 percent). The BSW received 124,760 (9.4 percent) and the SPD 115,915 (8.8 percent). Die Linke’s statewide share was 3.7 points above 2021; the AfD’s was 14.6 points higher and the SPD’s 14.7 points lower.

Nationally, Die Linke received 4,356,532 second votes, 8.8 percent, 3.9 points more than in 2021, and was allocated 64 seats, 25 more than before, in a Bundestag fixed at 630 members. Clearing the five-percent threshold meant its state lists counted in the allocation. The BSW, despite its Thuringian share, won none: nationally it took 4.981 percent of second votes.

Three of Die Linke’s seats were filled from Thuringia. On 24 February 2025 the state returning officer, on a preliminary count, named 18 successful Thuringian candidates: eight AfD, four CDU, three Die Linke, two SPD and one Green. The three for Die Linke were Ramelow by first vote in constituency 192, Vogtschmidt from list place 2, and Eißing from list place 3. The final roll matches that count. Ramelow is not among those elected from the list, because he had already taken a constituency seat; the two list seats went to the next names.

Ramelow won constituency 192 with 64,390 first votes, 36.8 percent, ahead of Alexander Claus of the AfD on 26.7 percent. It was the only Thuringian constituency not won by the AfD. The other seven returned AfD candidates, including Kaufmann in 194. Vogtschmidt did not win constituency 188, where [Christopher Drößler](/people/christopher-drossler) of the AfD took 39.5 percent and [David Gregosz](/people/david-gregosz) of the CDU was second with 27.8 percent. Die Linke’s first-vote share there was 11.9 percent (19,527 votes). She entered from list place 2 and Eißing from list place 3. The Federal Returning Officer’s directory records Eißing, born in 1976, as elected for Die Linke on the Thuringia state list at position 3, with constituency 194 beside her name.

## Membership of the Bundestag

### Entry and mandate

Mandy Eißing took her seat in the Bundestag on 25 March 2025, the date its biography gives as the start of her mandate in the 21st [German Bundestag](/organizations/german-bundestag). That was the day the 21st Bundestag held its constitutive sitting.

*The plenary chamber of the Reichstag during the constitutive sitting of the 21st German Bundestag on 25 March 2025.*

She was returned on a state list, not by a constituency plurality. At the snap 2025 German federal election of 23 February 2025 she stood for Die Linke in constituency 194, Saalfeld-Rudolstadt – Saale-Holzland-Kreis – Saale-Orla-Kreis, in Thuringia, and in third place on the party’s Thuringian state list. In the final constituency result, Die Linke, whose direct candidate she was, received 21,114 first votes (12.3 percent). The seat went to Michael Kaufmann of the Alternative for Germany, with 76,204 votes (44.5 percent); Diana Herbstreuth of the CDU was runner-up on 20.6 percent. The register of those elected records Eißing as returned for Thuringia on list place 3.

The sitting was held in the Reichstag building in Berlin. Article 39(2) of the Basic Law requires the Bundestag to assemble no later than the thirtieth day after an election; 25 March 2025 was that day, and the previous electoral term ended when the new Bundestag met.

### Committees

The Bundestag lists Eißing as an ordinary member of the Committee on Education, Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and as a deputy member of the Committee on Internal Affairs. Structured data on the biography dates both roles from 25 March 2025. The Bundestag’s open member-data file records her as an ordinary member of the Council of Elders’ commission for the Bundestag’s internal affairs (Innere Kommission) from 4 June 2025. The public biography page does not list that commission.

In the 21st term the education and family committee has 38 members. The Bundestag describes its work as strengthening families, children and young people, combining family life with employment, promoting equality of women and men, and setting the main lines of education policy, while, given demographic change, developing conditions for a largely self-determined life in old age. It constituted itself on 21 May 2025 and elected [Saskia Esken](/people/saskia-esken) of the Social Democratic Party of Germany as chair. Seats were 13 for the CDU/CSU, nine for the AfD, seven for the SPD, five for Alliance 90/The Greens and four for Die Linke; Eißing was one of the four, with [Kathrin Gebel](/people/kathrin-gebel), Nicole Gohlke and [Maren Kaminski](/people/maren-kaminski).

The Committee on Internal Affairs has 42 members and a remit running from policy on foreigners and asylum to civil protection and disaster relief. The Bundestag says it tries to balance collective internal security with individual civil rights, scrutinises the [Federal Ministry of the Interior](/organizations/federal-ministry-of-the-interior) and its subordinate authorities, prepares legislation for the plenary, and holds expert hearings. Each ordinary committee member has one vote; a deputy may attend every sitting but may vote only when replacing an absent ordinary member of the same parliamentary group.

### Spokesperson roles and interparliamentary groups

The spokesperson titles attached to Eißing belong to the Left group in the Bundestag, not to the Bundestag as an office. The *Ostthüringer Zeitung* reported on 6 June 2025 that the group had that week elected her, already a member of the family and education committee, as spokesperson for family, senior citizens and civic engagement (*bürgerschaftliches Engagement*). The group’s spokesperson list names her separately for family policy, policy on senior citizens, and civic engagement.

The biography also lists her, under “Stellvertretender Vorsitz”, for three interparliamentary bodies: the Berlin-Taipei Parliamentary Circle of Friends, the Parliamentary Group for the Northern Adriatic, and the German–South Asian Parliamentary Group. Friendship groups are cross-party, have no statutes of their own, and admit only Bundestag members, each of whom may join at most three. For the 21st term there are 47 bilateral and multilateral groups, covering parliamentary relations with about 180 countries; a faction that does not hold the chair may name a deputy, and the Council of Elders announced their establishment in June 2025.

The directory of 21st-term executives lists, for Berlin-Taipei, [Till Steffen](/people/till-steffen) (Alliance 90/The Greens), [Markus Reichel](/people/markus-reichel) (CDU/CSU), [Tobias Peterka](/people/tobias-peterka) (AfD), [Rasha Nasr](/people/rasha-nasr) (SPD) and Eißing. A delegation to Taiwan from 23 to 31 May 2026, led by Steffen, included Eißing with Reichel, [Klaus-Peter Willsch](/people/klaus-peter-willsch) and [Rainer Kraft](/people/rainer-kraft). Its programme covered talks with legislators, government representatives and civil society, a meeting with President [Lai Ching-te](/people/lai-ching-te) and former [president Tsai](/people/tsai-ing-wen) Ing-wen, and a visit to the Central Taiwan Science Park on the semiconductor industry.

The same directory places her on the South Asia executive, after [Nicklas Kappe](/people/nicklas-kappe) (CDU/CSU), Stefan Schröder (AfD), [Johann Saathoff](/people/johann-saathoff) (SPD) and [Ulle Schauws](/people/ulle-schauws) (Alliance 90/The Greens). Bundestag publications describe that group’s partners as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The Northern Adriatic group is identified in the 19th-term board list as the group for Croatia and Slovenia. Eißing’s biography names her as a deputy chair, but the 21st-term executives directory lists Christian Haase (CDU/CSU), Christian Wirth (AfD), [Karl Bär](/people/karl-bar) (Alliance 90/The Greens) and [Nadine Heselhaus](/people/nadine-heselhaus) (SPD), and does not include her. A delegation travelled to Croatia from 29 June to 3 July 2026 under Haase, with Wirth, Bär and Willsch; the notice does not name Eißing.

## Family, youth and social policy

### Parental benefits and protection

On 10 October 2025 Mandy Eißing opened, in the Bundestag, a Die Linke motion on the minimum Elterngeld. It stated that the floor had been €300 a month for Basiselterngeld and €150 for ElterngeldPlus since 2007, that consumer prices had risen 46.3 percent by July 2025, and that about 17 percent of parents of children born from 2024 — almost 21 percent of mothers — received only the minimum. It asked for €440 and €220, price indexation, and a partial disregard against basic social security. The 2025 CDU/CSU–SPD agreement had already promised a "noticeable" rise in the income limit and in the minimum and maximum. Wolfgang Dahler (CDU/CSU) said raising only the minimum would be costly and blunt, and that Family Minister Karin Prien was drafting a wider reform.

On 17 December 2025 she moved 28 days' leave at full pay, through the maternity-protection levy, for the second parent or someone the mother named. The motion cited European Union Directive 2019/1158, which requires ten working days of paid paternity leave, and noted that a 2022 infringement case had been closed in 2023. She said Elterngeld was not leave straight after birth, and that the SPD's two-week "Familienstartzeit" had dropped out of the coalition agreement. State Secretary Mareike Lotte Wulf answered that a month of Elternzeit already met the directive. Dahler denied any breach and said the directive required neither 28 days nor full pay; Truels Reichardt (SPD) called the two weeks his party's unused scheme; [Gereon Bollmann](/people/gereon-bollmann) (AfD) said fathers could already take 28 days if they claimed at least two months of Elterngeld.

On 14 January 2026, on an AfD motion about self-employed mothers, she credited the alliance "Mutterschutz für Alle!" and said the AfD was using protection as population policy. Employees, she argued, receive full net pay, with employers refunded from a levy; the self-employed receive neither. She preferred tax-funded maternity pay for everyone, or a levy covering the self-employed. The coalition agreement does promise employee-style protection periods for the self-employed. Konrad Körner (CDU/CSU) said the AfD had largely copied an earlier Union motion, cited 27,000 pregnancies a year among self-employed women, and said Prien would bring a bill.

On 7 May 2026 her bill on a sick child proposed leave for the whole illness, one week of full employer pay (six weeks if palliative), then uncapped sickness benefit, because contracts often waive continued pay and only time-limited Kinderkrankengeld remains. She said the extra days ran only to the end of 2026. [Sandra Carstensen](/people/sandra-carstensen) (CDU/CSU) said the text repeated a 2020 bill and would put unfunded costs on small firms.

### Children, education and youth work

On 9 October 2025 she answered the AfD motion "Dem deutschen Volke — Unsere Zukunft gestalten und durch geeignete Familienpolitik sichern", which favoured the mother-father-child household and interest-free KfW loans of up to €10,000 a birth, only for German citizens. She defined family as mutual responsibility, including unmarried, queer and patchwork households, and said lesbian mothers and trans parents still sued for recognition. Calling the loans a "Mother's Cross 2.0" brought AfD protests that this was a Nazi comparison. She also asked for a reformed maintenance advance, help for single parents, price-linked Elterngeld and a modern parentage law; SPD and Alliance 90/The Greens members applauded parts of that list.

On 7 May 2026, against AfD motions to retask the Federal Institute for Population Research toward more births, she granted that the birth rate was falling but blamed the conditions of having children. She cited a poverty risk for every seventh child and 29 percent for single parents, and a planned cut to the maintenance advance; Martin Reichardt (AfD) interjected that the motion did not order women to give birth.

In the 16 September 2025 budget debate on education, family, seniors, women and youth she set the frozen Elterngeld against talk of compulsory service, and said voluntary-service funds were being cut. She called the unindexed Child and Youth Plan a cold cut as youth social work, cultural education and migration services needed more, and opposed intelligence-service oversight of democracy projects.

On 10 September 2026 she described the next draft as cutting Elterngeld from 14 months to 12, and to nine for one parent if the other skipped reserved months, although a childcare place is a right only from age one. She also named a maintenance advance ending at 16, cuts to the immediate child supplement, and about €20 million off "Demokratie leben!", harder in the east, where foundations do not replace the state. [Jamila Schäfer](/people/jamila-schafer) (Greens) described the same move from twelve months to nine. That was the budget form of the coalition plan to reshuffle Elterngeld months alongside a higher minimum and maximum.

### Older people and pensions

On 19 March 2026 the House debated the ninth report on older people, "Alt werden in Deutschland" (paper 20/14450). Its commission wanted a statutory pension floor past 2025 and better cover of broken careers. Eißing said the report had waited over a year and that old-age poverty was hitting women, people in the east, people living alone and people with broken careers; she asked for a pension clear of poverty and for usable transport in places such as Thuringia.

On 14 September 2026 she told Abgeordnetenwatch she would vote against tying the pension age to life expectancy: average longevity says little about hard physical jobs, and a later age would punish long working lives. Tagesschau had reported on 20 June 2026 that the coalition's pension commission wanted, after 67, to split further gains in life expectancy so contribution years and retirement years stayed near two to one — about 68 rather than 67 for people then in their thirties — and to replace the long-service early pension with a health test.

## East Germany, democracy and other positions

### Equal living conditions

Before entering the Bundestag, Eißing told the *Ostthüringer Zeitung* that injustice, “including that between East and West, must finally be ended.” The 5 February 2025 interview, given as a Die Linke direct candidate, concerned rural areas, the skilled trades and youth clubs.

On 7 October 2025 she was the lead signatory of a Left motion, “35 years of German reunification — implement equivalent living conditions in East and West now” (Drucksache 21/2031). It cited Article 72(2) of the Basic Law and asked for a minimum wage of at least 60 percent of the full-time median — at least €15 from 2026 — an end to remaining east–west collective-agreement splits, lower electricity prices, cancellation of municipal legacy debt, and industrial support for the chemical region and hydrogen. On 9 October only Die Linke voted for the motion; every other group voted against, and it failed.

The next day, on the coalition motion “35 years of German unity — consolidating freedom in Germany and Europe” (Drucksache 21/2026), she said she had been 14 at reunification and again saw “only West Germans” at the ceremony in Saarbrücken. She spoke of “35 years of less wages, less pension” and of West German dominance, and criticized the chancellor, of the Christian Democratic Union, for talking about migration instead. From Thuringia she called it plunder when western firms produced locally but booked company tax in the west, and she cited mass unemployment and the Treuhandanstalt. The motion passed: the CDU/CSU, the Social Democratic Party and Alliance 90/The Greens for, Die Linke against, the Alternative for Germany abstaining.

Official series are narrower than “less pension.” The German Pension Insurance states that the current pension value has been the same in east and west since 1 July 2023, at €37.60, a year ahead of plan. An uprating factor had given eastern contributors about 4 percent more entitlement for the same earnings; it ended for pay from 1 January 2025, while points already credited kept it. Her speech looked forward: low eastern wages now, she said, would mean lower pensions in 30 years. The Federal Statistical Office puts 2024 full-time monthly pay in manufacturing and services, excluding special payments, at €4,810 in the western Länder including Berlin and €3,973 in the eastern Länder — still a good fifth higher in the west. In 1991 the figures were €1,987 and €924.

On 14 September 2026 she wrote on Abgeordnetenwatch that she rejected, and would not vote for, tying the pension age automatically to life expectancy. Average longevity, she said, says little about how long people in physically hard jobs can work in health, and long working lives should not be “punished” by a later pension.

### Civic engagement and democracy

The same day she answered a question on whether government plans would in practice end the [Freedom of Information Act](/facts/freedom-of-information-act). She called them an attack on press freedom and public scrutiny, and said the Act was being hollowed out. A “legitimate interest” test, higher fees and routine blacking-out of names would, she wrote, add bureaucracy, make transparency depend on income and shield the government. Die Linke, she said, would defend information and press freedom and demand more control.

On 16 October 2025, asked how the Bundestag could reflect the vote after Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht missed the 5 percent threshold, she said a correct count was essential and that the party’s recount objection was a priority for the electoral-scrutiny committee, then in a preliminary review with an expert report before the Bundestag since the end of August 2025. The October motion also sought stable funding for centers advising victims of right-wing violence and for programs using east German biographies in democracy work.

### Recorded votes and foreign contacts

On 16 October 2025 Eißing voted against extending the Bundeswehr role in the European Union-led operation EUNAVFOR ASPIDES, which passed by 435 votes to 69, with 77 abstentions. She also voted against extending the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), adopted by 494 to 72, with 4 abstentions. On 15 October 2026 she cast no vote on the next ASPIDES extension (421 yes, 66 no, 90 abstentions), the next UNMISS extension (496 yes, 73 no, 4 abstentions), or the third amendment of the Fuel Emissions Trading Act (303 yes, 210 no, 52 abstentions).

On 8 October 2026 the Bundestag rejected Greens tax texts, including “Close the justice gap in the tax system — reform share deals, abolish the tax privilege for real-estate corporations” (Drucksachen 21/6646 and 21/7081): 132 in favor, 445 against and three abstentions. Related motions on inheritance-tax relief and real-estate taxation failed by similar margins. In the member spreadsheet for named vote no. 2 that day, Eißing is marked no. The sheet shows 445 yes, 132 no, one abstention and 52 not voting, with 54 members of Die Linke in the no column.

On 30 June 2026 she wrote that a trip to Taiwan had been undertaken in the Berlin–Taipei parliamentary friendship group and had served mutual exchange. She stated no further result.

## Constituency work and public profile

### Offices and local presence

Eißing was Die Linke's candidate in Bundestag constituency 194, Saalfeld-Rudolstadt – Saale-Holzland-Kreis – Saale-Orla-Kreis, and entered the 21st Bundestag on the party's Thuringia state list rather than by winning the district. Her home city, Altenburg, lies outside that constituency. The Bundestag biography lists a Berlin office at Platz der Republik 1, 11011 Berlin, and three constituency offices: Naumburger Straße 8 in Hermsdorf (07629), Schuhgasse 15 in Pößneck (07381), and Ernst-Thälmann-Straße 5 in Bad Lobenstein (07356).

On 16 August 2025 the *Ostthüringer Zeitung* reported that she had opened the Bad Lobenstein office, with staff member Evelin Schöpe, and intended to visit towns as well. Hermsdorf is in the Saale-Holzland district and the other two offices are in the Saale-Orla district; no Saalfeld-Rudolstadt address is listed. She has also kept district-council posts in Altenburger Land. Disclosures on the Bundestag site, mirrored on abgeordnetenwatch without a euro amount, list membership of that council, roles on its youth-welfare committee and its committee for assistance with upbringing, a board seat at Kreisjugendring Altenburger Land, and, from 9 September 2025, a board seat in the association of the Linke Bundestag group. Her deputy leadership of the council group is recorded as ending on 30 August 2025.

### Media coverage and citizen questions

In a report dated 24 February 2025, the *Ostthüringer Zeitung* described a long election night for her in Saalfeld and wrote that third place on the state list was enough for a seat; it later put her first-vote share in the constituency at about 12 percent. Earlier that month its Saale-Orla edition interviewed her under the headline that injustice, including between east and west, finally had to end. On 6 June 2025 it reported her election as the group's spokesperson for family, seniors and civic engagement. Quoted from her office, she argued for less bureaucracy and more support for volunteering, for pensions and rural services in old age, and for free kindergarten and school lunches, lower childcare costs and a poverty-proof basic child allowance. The *Leipziger Volkszeitung* carried a June 2025 Altenburger Land report on her first 100 days in parliament.

In June 2026 [Luigi Pantisano](/people/luigi-pantisano), elected co-chair of Die Linke with [Ines Schwerdtner](/people/ines-schwerdtner) on about 53 percent of the congress vote, told *Bild* that there was at that moment no difference between the CDU, which he said was making fascist policy, the AfD, or the fascists themselves. He then called the line shortened and in that form wrong, apologized especially to CDU members who insist on a firewall against the AfD, and kept his criticism of the Union's rightward turn. CDU general secretary [Carsten Linnemann](/people/carsten-linnemann) rejected the apology and said equating [Christian Democrats](/organizations/christian-democrats) with fascists played down fascist crimes. Tagesschau.de reported that Union general secretaries had demanded his resignation, quoted CSU politician Martin Huber calling the start catastrophic, and quoted Saxony-Anhalt Left leader Eva von Angern calling the remark unacceptable. The *Tagesspiegel* also reported criticism from eastern Left leaders, including Thuringia's.

In a 24 June 2026 interview with [Der Spiegel](/organizations/der-spiegel), Eißing said it was a catastrophe to hollow out the accusation of fascism in this way. The magazine reported that the comparison had particularly angered members in the east, that she worried about relations with the chancellor's party, and that she viewed the apology skeptically.

On abgeordnetenwatch she had answered all five questions counted for the current candidacy and mandate. She opposed linking the pension age to life expectancy, called planned limits on the Freedom of Information Act an attack on press freedom and public scrutiny, described a Taiwan visit as an exchange in the Berlin–Taipei parliamentary friendship group, and referred doubts about the 2025 count to the electoral-review committee. In May 2025 she wrote that stopping "the right" required civil society, a clear line in parliament and social policy that leaves nobody behind; in a February 2025 campaign answer she said she would support an AfD ban procedure if elected.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/mandy-eissing