AfD's Siegmund Eyes Saxony-Anhalt as Blueprint for Far-Right Rule in Germany

Saxony-Anhalt, a state of two million people in eastern Germany, is about to hold an election that could reshape the country's political landscape. On September 6, voters will decide whether to hand power to the Alternative for Germany, or AfD—a party that, if victorious, would form the first far-right government in Germany since World War II. The state itself is economically fragile, ranking last among Germany's sixteen federal states in both economic output and life expectancy. But its size belies its significance. A win here would not be contained to Saxony-Anhalt.

Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD's lead candidate, is thirty-five years old and drawing crowds wherever he campaigns. Born in the small town of Havelberg, he spent five years in the center-right Christian Democratic Union before switching to the AfD. He was once a perfume salesman. Today he moves through town squares with the ease of someone who has found his audience—slim, handsome, animated, cracking jokes and shaking hands while international journalists from Canada, Denmark, Switzerland, and Britain circle to document his rise. When DW asked him about his support among young voters, he spoke with practiced confidence: "I don't know when there was last such a high approval rating, even among young people. It's simply enormous." Polls show him well positioned to lead, and the only real question is whether the AfD can secure an absolute majority in the state parliament. The other parties have already declared they will not form a coalition with him, meaning a solo government is his only path to the premiership.

David Begrich, who directs Miteinander, an organization in the state capital of Magdeburg dedicated to countering right-wing extremism, observed that the AfD's campaign operates with precision. "The AfD's campaign events run like clockwork, both logistically and in terms of political strategy," he said. "It is high-gloss marketing of their own policies." Those policies, as Siegmund presents them on the stump, amount to a reversal of recent German history. He speaks of returning to a time before Germany accepted itself as a nation of immigrants, before wind turbines replaced nuclear power, before LGBTQ+ rights were recognized. His campaign slogan promises politics "from the people, for the people"—though the AfD's "100-day immediate action plan" makes clear which people he means. The plan calls for deporting foreign nationals whose presence is tolerated on humanitarian grounds, many of whom have built lives and found work in Germany. It promises to cut funding to pro-democracy organizations, to force refugees into labor, and to prioritize German nationalism over social diversity. Legal scholars have raised serious questions about whether a state government actually possesses the authority to enact these measures.

Beneath Siegmund's polished public image, however, cracks have begun to show. He secured a position for his own father within the AfD's parliamentary offices—a move that, while not illegal, drew criticism even from within his own party as an example of cronyism. More troubling are the people surrounding him. According to Die Welt, the AfD's parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt employs four former members of the Heimattreue Deutsche Jugend, a neo-Nazi organization that was banned by the German government. Before its prohibition, the group openly venerated Adolf Hitler and embraced Nazi racial ideology—the same ideology that led to the murder of six million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Sinti and Roma during the Holocaust. Siegmund himself has shown no apparent discomfort appearing alongside supporters who wear neo-Nazi symbols and tattoos, including the Black Sun, a recognized emblem within neo-Nazi circles.

If the AfD wins, Begrich warned, Saxony-Anhalt would become something far more consequential than a single state election. "There are clear indications that if the AfD were to enter government, it would turn Saxony-Anhalt into a testing ground for the whole country," he said. "Just how far can one go in overriding the written—and perhaps even more importantly, the unwritten—rules of democratic culture in a federal state?" Churches, trade unions, civil society organizations, and political parties across the spectrum have issued warnings. Begrich articulated what many fear: "Naturally, things will become difficult, above all, for those in society who either belong to minorities or do not fit into the AfD's ideological worldview. The social climate would inevitably shift to an authoritarian regimentation—and that poses a problem for people who need liberal openness in society as they need air to breathe." For critics, this election is not merely about one state. It is a test of whether a far-right party can use democratic processes to dismantle the democratic order itself—and whether, once established in power, it will stop at state borders or press toward national control.