Department of Regional Coordination

The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation is a party-affiliated foundation active across Germany. An important part of our political education programme is comprised of the events, publications, and other activities organized by our partners in the German federal states. These include regional foundations, regional offices, Rosa-Luxemburg-Clubs, and other partners. This close cooperation allows us to host around 1,900 events across the country every year. The foundation’s programme targets the milieu around Die Linke, but also a broader public interested in political education.

The RLS Foundation Network consists of the legally independent regional foundations along with the RLS at the federal level. The Network is organized in a Council of Regional Foundations, in which every regional foundation has a vote. This council represents the regional foundations vis-à-vis the Executive Board of the RLS. In most federal states (with the exceptions of Berlin, Brandenburg, and Saxony), the RLS operates Regional Offices with their own staff. These RLS Regional Offices work closely with the respective regional foundations, and represent the interface between regional work in a given federal state and the RLS at the federal level. Like most of the other party-affiliated foundations, the RLS and the regional foundations are not institutions in the sense of German foundation law, but rather registered associations.

Rosa-Luxemburg-Clubs organize educational programmes at the local level. The largest number of clubs were founded in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, but they also exist in most of the other federal states. Here they usually take on the local representation of the respective regional foundation and the RLS. In some eastern federal states, such as Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, branches or regional offices of the regional foundations fulfil this function.

The overwhelming majority of regional foundations’ and Clubs’ work — and thus a large portion of the foundation’s nation-wide presence — is carried out by volunteers. The boards of the regional foundations shape and coordinate their education programmes together with RLS regional staff and in some instances with their own personnel (in Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia).

The work of all regional foundations is financed firstly by the RLS (through federal funds), to a lesser extent through their own funds (donations, contributions), and lastly in some states (currently Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia) through state funds — albeit to highly divergent extents and in line with sharply varying state regulations. Die Linke’s entrance into four western state parliaments has now opened up the possibility for more regional foundations to receive funds for political education from the state budget. On this basis, educational and networking activities in the federal states can be further expanded in the future.

Stiftung Network Contact Persons

Representatives of the regional foundations form the Council of Regional Foundations in line with § 11 of the RLS statutes. In May 2017 this body elected

  • as spokesperson: Ulrike Detjen (Rosa Luxemburg Foundation North Rhine-Westphalia)
  • as deputy spokesperson: Dennis Jannack (Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Saxony-Anhalt)

As per the Council’s suggestion, Ulrike Detjen was elected to the Executive Board by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation General Assembly in 2016. Dennis Jannack participates in RLS board meetings as deputy spokesperson when Ulrike Detjen is unable to attend.

Contact in the RLS: Unit Heads of Regional Coordination

Lutz Kirschner, Tel.: (030) 44310-146

Stefanie Ehmsen, Tel. (030) 44310-42