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MAGDEBURG/WASHINGTON — Germany has voted, and the result in Saxony-Anhalt reaches far beyond the borders of a state with just over two million inhabitants. In the state election on September 6, the Alternative for Germany became by far the strongest party with 43.8 percent. The CDU managed only 17.2 percent. The AfD won 39 of 83 seats, falling short of an absolute majority.
It is a result of historic proportions. The AfD nearly doubled its vote share compared to 2021 and achieved its strongest state election result to date. Ulrich Siegmund declared after the election that his party had “made history.” Saxony-Anhalt could indeed become a political test case for the entire Federal Republic: what happens when a party that for years lived primarily off protest, opposition, and fundamental criticism of established political structures suddenly comes close to actual governing responsibility?
A comparison with the United States first makes clear a fundamental difference. The American political and constitutional system is not the German one. The First Amendment protects political speech and freedom of the press extraordinarily broadly. Germany, in turn, developed the concept of a “militant democracy” (wehrhafte Demokratie) because of its history. The Federal Republic understands democracy not solely as majority rule, but as an order in which even majorities remain bound by human dignity, fundamental rights, separation of powers, and the rule of law.
This difference is crucial to understanding why the AfD’s rise in Germany triggers a different debate than the success of populist movements in the United States.
At the same time, it would be too simplistic to categorically view 43.8 percent of voters in Saxony-Anhalt as extremists. A democracy cannot write off its citizens because their voting decision alarms large parts of the political public. The result also tells a story of considerable loss of trust in the existing political offerings. Economic insecurity, migration, high costs, bureaucracy, and the perception of many citizens that politics no longer adequately addresses their everyday problems have created a political space that the AfD has successfully occupied. The response of the other parties therefore cannot consist solely of morally excluding these people. They must try to win them back politically.
When Protest Becomes Political Power
Ulrich Siegmund sees the election result as a mandate to fundamentally transform Saxony-Anhalt. His announced 100-day program ranges from migration policy to public administration to public broadcasting. Among the plans are deportations of people without a right of residence, mandatory work programs for asylum seekers, changes to the school system, and a restructuring of media policy.
This last point in particular deserves special attention. The AfD has sharply attacked public broadcasting for years. Siegmund wants to withdraw from the corresponding agreements among the federal states and abolish the current broadcasting fee. In a speech in the state parliament, he spoke of a “forced broadcasting levy” and declared: “This forced levy in this country has to go.”
Criticism of ARD, ZDF, or the MDR is of course legitimate in a democracy. In comparison with the United States, however, it is striking how differently the media systems are organized. The U.S. has no system directly comparable to ARD and ZDF — a national public broadcasting system financed by a mandatory household fee. PBS and NPR function structurally differently; the American news market is considerably more privately organized and, at the same time, more politically polarized.
This is precisely why the transatlantic comparison is worthwhile.
After the 2020 American presidential election, false claims about Dominion Voting Systems were spread on Fox News. Dominion sued for defamation. Shortly before the trial began, the parties agreed in April 2023 to a settlement of $787.5 million.
Fox News was thus not fined $787.5 million. It was a civil settlement. But precisely this legal precision makes the case interesting. Even under the extraordinarily broad protection of the First Amendment, freedom of the press in the United States does not mean that demonstrably false factual claims fundamentally remain without legal consequences.
At the same time, the case shows the other side of the principle: a government may not simply silence a television network because it considers its coverage unfair, hostile, or politically biased.
This is precisely where the comparison leads back to Saxony-Anhalt. A democratically elected government may of course discuss the financing and structure of public broadcasting. The decisive question, however, is whether a government wants to create a better and more efficient broadcasting system — or one that contradicts it less. This question would have to be asked of any German government, regardless of which party leads it. After all, the freedom of the media does not prove its value when journalists praise a government. It proves it precisely when they can criticize a government without needing its approval.
A Word Becomes a Political Program: What Does “Remigration” Mean?
The debate becomes even more fundamental around a term that plays an important role in the AfD’s political rise: remigration.
Anyone following the German debate from outside might initially assume the word was invented by the AfD or the political right. That is not the case. “Remigration” is originally a term from migration and exile research. It denotes the return of migrants to their country of origin or to the starting point of their migration. This can explicitly refer to voluntary return. In academic contexts, the term has, for example, also been used for the return of emigrants after the end of National Socialism.
Its present-day political explosiveness arose because actors from the New Right and the extreme right adopted the word and gave it a political meaning. In particular within the milieu of the Identitarian Movement, “remigration” developed into a key term.
Among the most prominent proponents of a far-reaching concept of remigration is the right-wing Austrian activist Martin Sellner, one of the best-known figures of the Identitarian Movement in the German-speaking world. Sellner advocates a concept of remigration that, in political debate, is discussed far beyond the classic question of how to deal with people without a right of residence.
What was originally a descriptive term thus became a political slogan. Why does the political right use precisely this word? One reason likely lies in its linguistic effect. “Remigration” sounds technical, administrative, and almost scientific. Terms such as deportation or expulsion, by contrast, immediately evoke different associations. It is precisely this apparent neutrality that explains part of the word’s political impact.
The dispute over such terms is by no means exclusively German. In the United States too, a political debate changes considerably depending on whether one speaks of “illegal aliens,” “undocumented immigrants,” “mass deportation,” or “border security.” The language chosen influences how a societal problem is perceived, even before concrete laws are decided upon.
Potsdam — When “Remigration” Became a National Debate
For the current situation in Saxony-Anhalt, the history of the term leads back to an event that occupied Germany for months at the beginning of 2024.
On November 25, 2023, a private gathering took place in Potsdam that later became widely known nationwide through an investigation by the investigative outlet Correctiv. Martin Sellner gave a presentation at this meeting in which he outlined his ideas on how to deal with foreigners and people with a migration background. That the meeting took place and that Sellner gave such a presentation there is also recorded as background to the legal dispute over the reporting in a later statement by the Berlin II Regional Court.
Journalistically, a distinction is important here: the meeting was not an official AfD event, not a party conference, and not a body at which an official party program was decided. Nevertheless, several people from the AfD were present.
Among the publicly identified participants was Ulrich Siegmund, at the time chairman of the AfD parliamentary group in the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament. Also present were AfD federal parliament member Gerrit Huy, former AfD federal parliament member Roland Hartwig, who at the time served as personal adviser to party leader Alice Weidel, as well as Tim Krause, at the time press spokesperson for the AfD parliamentary group in the Brandenburg state parliament and deputy chairman of an AfD district association.
Thus, on that November day in Potsdam, the room also contained the very Ulrich Siegmund who, just under three years later, would lead the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt to 43.8 percent of the vote. This temporal connection makes Potsdam relevant again in the fall of 2026.
Siegmund has not denied his participation. At the same time, he has rejected accusations that he wants to unlawfully remove people from Germany. This position, too, belongs to a complete account. His participation in the meeting alone does not prove that he shares Sellner’s ideas. Equating Sellner’s concept with Siegmund’s political program would not be journalistically justified. But the participation raises questions — especially now, as Siegmund claims actual political power following his election victory.
What does remigration mean for him in concrete terms? Who is supposed to leave Germany? Exclusively people without a right of residence? Foreign criminals? People with legal residence status? And where is the line between tough migration policy and a policy that treats people differently based on their origin?
Potsdam therefore became more than a story about a private gathering. The meeting placed at the center the question of which ideas from the extra-parliamentary right-wing milieu could find their way into party-political debates. At the same time, part of the story of Potsdam is a legal development that, in a serious account, must not be omitted.
In March 2026, the Berlin II Regional Court prohibited Correctiv from making certain statements in connection with AfD federal parliament member Gerrit Huy. Among other things, following this ruling, Correctiv was no longer permitted to claim that Huy had proposed “taking back” German citizenship from people with dual citizenship. The ruling likewise concerned certain depictions of an alleged “master plan” for expelling German citizens. At the time of the court’s announcement, the decision was not yet legally binding; Correctiv subsequently filed an appeal.
The court did not, however, call into question that the meeting on November 25, 2023, took place and that Martin Sellner gave a presentation there. The court’s official press release explicitly states that Sellner presented his ideas on how to deal with foreigners and people with a migration background. This distinction is crucial.
Potsdam should be neither dramatized nor trivialized. It was not an AfD party conference at which an official state program was decided. But it was a gathering at which the right-wing activist Martin Sellner presented his ideas, and at which several AfD politicians were present — among them Ulrich Siegmund.
What was still a debate at a private meeting in 2023 must therefore, in 2026, be measured against the standards of possible government policy.
What Does the AfD Itself Mean by Remigration?
Precisely for this reason, a distinction must be made between Sellner’s ideas and the official position of the AfD. The AfD officially defines the term more narrowly. A position paper by the federal executive board states that remigration comprises measures and incentives for the “constitutional and lawful return of foreign nationals obligated to leave to their homeland.” The party simultaneously states that it does not distinguish between German citizens with and without a migration background. This belongs to a fair portrayal of the party.
At the same time, different and in some cases more far-reaching ideas of what is meant by remigration exist within the political milieu to the right of the center. This is precisely where the controversy arises. Someone who says “remigration” may mean the deportation of a rejected asylum seeker who, after the conclusion of their proceedings, has no right of residence. Others use the word for a considerably more comprehensive policy of return migration.
For a state governed by the rule of law, these differences are enormous. A rejected asylum seeker without a right of residence, a foreign citizen legally working in Germany, and a German citizen with Syrian, Turkish, Polish, or African parents are legally completely different cases.
A German citizen remains German.
The Basic Law knows no first- and second-class Germans.
If a campaign slogan is to become government policy, a catchphrase is therefore no longer sufficient. It must then be concretely clarified who is meant, on what legal basis action is to be taken, and where the limits of state power lie.
And Then Austria Enters the Picture
Precisely at this point, Germany’s southern neighbor offers a remarkable perspective. The AfD is not only concerned with the question of who should leave Germany. Within its political milieu, there is simultaneously discussion of how emigrated Germans can be won back for their homeland. Given the shortage of skilled workers, the idea of persuading doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, or other qualified citizens to return is, at first glance, by no means unusual.
But Austrian crime statistics make the debate more complicated.
In 2024, Austrian police registered 335,911 crime suspects. Of these, 157,058 were foreign nationals. Among the foreign suspects, Romanian citizens formed the largest group with 18,925 people. In second place were German citizens with 13,631 suspects — ahead of Syrians, Serbs, and Turks.
In 2025 as well, German citizens once again ranked among the three numerically largest groups of foreign suspects in Austria.
This allows for a deliberately pointed question: if, on the one hand, emigrated Germans are to be won back for Germany, and on the other hand, criminal offenders are to be “remigrated” — in which direction, then, does a German criminal in Austria actually get “remigrated”? Should Germany bring him back so that he can work here?
The question is deliberately provocative. It explicitly does not claim that the AfD pursues such a plan. Rather, it exposes a fundamental problem that arises as soon as nationality becomes the central framework of a crime and migration debate.
For the Austrian figures obviously do not prove that Germans are particularly prone to crime. The statistical category itself is crucial: these are crime suspects, not automatically legally convicted criminals. Population size, tourism, cross-border traffic, commuter movements, age structure, and length of stay can additionally influence such figures.
From 13,631 German suspects, one must therefore not conclude that Germans pose a security risk. And precisely herein lies the actual lesson. A nationality does not commit a crime. A person commits a crime. A state governed by the rule of law must prosecute, charge, and — if guilt is proven — punish this person. But nationality should not replace individual guilt.
What applies to Germans in Austria must, in principle, also apply to Syrians, Afghans, Turks, or Romanians in Germany. This by no means means downplaying crime. Violent offenders must be consistently prosecuted, and foreign criminals can, where the legal requirements are met, lose their right of residence and be deported. But between consistent criminal prosecution and a blanket suspicion against a group defined by origin lies a boundary crucial to the rule of law.
Washington and Berlin — Two Conceptions of Democracy
The debate over the AfD has long since become a transatlantic one. Leading American politicians have criticized Germany’s handling of the party with unusual sharpness.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance declared at the 2025 Munich Security Conference: “There’s no room for firewalls.” His argument went beyond a mere assessment of the AfD. Democracy, his message ran, rests on the fact that the voice of the people counts and that political leaderships must not fear their own voters. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later even described the actions of German security authorities against the AfD as “tyranny in disguise.”
In the American political system, there is indeed no directly comparable instrument of a party-political “firewall.” The American two-party system functions fundamentally differently from the German multi-party system.
Germany, in turn, argues from a historical experience that the United States does not possess in this form. The Federal Republic arose after the collapse of a democracy whose institutions were first used and then destroyed by the National Socialists. From this developed the notion that a democracy must not wait to defend itself until its abolition has already begun.
The American and German understandings of democracy thus collide at a difficult point. Vance’s objection that a democracy cannot ignore its voters touches on a real challenge. 43.8 percent of the citizens of Saxony-Anhalt cannot simply be declared politically irrelevant. But the German counter-position, too, touches on a fundamental principle: an electoral majority alone does not permit a government to alter fundamental rights, independent courts, or free media at will.
Democracy is majority rule — but not rule without limits.
Germany Is Not America
Perhaps that is the most important insight of this political moment. The American system differs fundamentally from the German one. The First Amendment grants political speech extraordinary protection. Germany, in turn, possesses constitutional instruments of a militant democracy that do not exist in this form within the American constitutional system. A majority in Germany may change much. But it may not change everything.
A minister-president in Magdeburg cannot suspend the Basic Law. He cannot abolish the Federal Constitutional Court. And he cannot decide that a German citizen is less German because his parents or grandparents came from Ankara, Damascus, Warsaw, Rome, or Accra. The real test of the AfD may therefore only be beginning now.
A protest party can promise much. A party that claims governing responsibility, by contrast, must show how it deals with institutions that contradict it. How does it treat critical journalists? How does it respect independent courts? What happens to public broadcasting? How is “remigration” defined once a political slogan is meant to become concrete administrative practice? Saxony-Anhalt could thus become a political laboratory for all of Germany.
The Other Parties Need More Than Fear of the AfD
It would, however, be a mistake if the CDU, SPD, Greens, Left Party, and liberal forces were to respond to this election result solely with warnings. Fear is, in the long run, not a governing program. Pointing to the possible dangers of a party creates no jobs, lowers no energy prices, speeds up no approval procedures, and gives a young person in Magdeburg, Halle, or Dessau no reason yet to see their professional future in Saxony-Anhalt.
In international comparison, it is striking how much the political mood in Germany has changed. In a country that for decades stood, like hardly any other, for economic stability, industrial strength, and political predictability, public debate is now heavily shaped by fears of decline. Migration and bureaucracy, weak growth and high costs dominate domestic political discussion, while Russia’s war against Ukraine, China’s economic and geopolitical rise, and an increasingly difficult transatlantic relationship generate additional pressure. From the outside, this at times creates the image of a country that talks more extensively about its crises than about its possibilities. This is particularly surprising in Germany’s case.
The Federal Republic remains Europe’s largest economy. It possesses an extraordinary industrial base, a strong Mittelstand, internationally successful companies, universities, and research institutions. It lies at the heart of a European single market with hundreds of millions of consumers and possesses political weight far beyond its borders. The decisive question after Saxony-Anhalt is therefore not only why the AfD was able to become so strong. It is also why it has become increasingly difficult for the other parties to develop a convincing vision of Germany’s future from these strengths.
The CDU, SPD, Greens, Left Party, and liberal forces will hardly weaken the AfD in the long run simply by warning against it. They must once again look forward and explain what kind of Germany they want to build in ten or twenty years: economically competitive, technologically modern, socially stable, secure, and firmly anchored in Europe. This does not mean glossing over problems. A democracy does not gain trust through optimism on demand. It gains trust by solving problems while at the same time making clear that a country is more than the sum of its crises.
Patriotism Does Not Belong to One Party
Germany in particular would have ample grounds for this self-confidence. After 1945, it built a stable democracy out of the rubble of a dictatorship, overcame the division of the country, and turned former wartime enemies into partners within a European order. In international comparison, this is among the most remarkable political success stories of the postwar era.
It is all the more remarkable that democratic parties in Germany sometimes give the impression of preferring to leave terms such as homeland, nation, or patriotism to the AfD. A look at the United States reveals a different political tradition. Democrats and Republicans argue bitterly over what the right path for their country is. Yet neither of the two major political forces would accept that only its respective opponent may claim the American flag for itself.
Why should this be any different in Germany? The German flag does not belong to the AfD. Homeland does not belong to the AfD. And pride in the achievements of democratic Germany is not the political property of a single party.
One can be proud of Germany and remain a convinced European. One can demand controlled migration while at the same time regarding Germans with a migration history as a self-evident part of the country. One can criticize ARD and ZDF and still defend their independence from state influence. One can reject a federal government without rejecting the democratic state. Perhaps this is one of the most important tasks for the other parties after Saxony-Anhalt: they must once again convey to people a positive vision of what Germany can be.
A Democracy’s Strength Shows Under Pressure
Saxony-Anhalt has sent Germany an unmistakable message. The AfD has reached 43.8 percent. This result can neither be argued away nor answered solely with a firewall. But the history of the Federal Republic does not end on one election night in Magdeburg.
The comparison with the United States offers no ready-made answer here. The political systems and historical experiences are too different. But both countries know the dangers of extreme political polarization. The U.S. has experienced what happens when citizens increasingly trust only those media that confirm their own political worldview, and when political competitors eventually come to be seen not as opponents but as enemies.
The Fox-Dominion case is a reminder that even the extraordinarily far-reaching American freedom of the press knows responsibility. Austrian crime statistics show how carefully figures on nationalities must be interpreted. The debate over “remigration,” in turn, shows what political power a single word can develop when its meaning shifts between academia, political movement, and party politics.
Potsdam further shows why journalism must look closely when ideas from a political fringe encounter people who later claim state power. The participation of AfD politicians in a private meeting does not automatically make Sellner’s ideas AfD policy. But it justifies questions about which of these ideas are shared, rejected, or carried forward politically in altered form.
And the conflict between Washington and Berlin over how to deal with the AfD shows something else: even two close Western allies can hold very different views on how a democracy should defend its freedom. A strong democracy does not prove its strength by ignoring inconvenient voters. But it proves it just as little by adopting radical demands merely to win these voters back.
It proves its strength by listening, solving problems, protecting free media, respecting independent courts, and treating every citizen equally before the law regardless of origin or political conviction. Germany built a democracy after a dictatorship. It rebuilt a destroyed country, overcame decades of division, and, together with its neighbors, created a European Union out of a continent of wars.
A country with this history has every reason to take its problems seriously. But it has just as much reason to trust in its own future. The decisive answer to the rise of the AfD may therefore lie less in the question of how much fear Germany should have of this party. It perhaps lies in a different question:
What kind of Germany do the democratic forces want to offer their citizens for the next twenty years?
If the CDU, SPD, Greens, Left Party, and liberal forces find convincing answers to this, they will not merely have to defend Germany’s democratic center. They can renew it. The AfD has won the election in Saxony-Anhalt. But it has not thereby won the right to define Germany alone.
Germany is bigger than one party, bigger than one election result, and bigger than fear of its own future. And perhaps this is precisely where the decisive challenge after Saxony-Anhalt lies: a democracy must be able to withstand criticism, allow political change, and respect election results — while at the same time preserving the rule-of-law boundaries that ensure democracy remains democracy even after the next election.
