Germany's far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party is well-positioned to score a historic victory in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday. More radical than ever, its program is inspired by the proposals of a very influential ideologue in the region: Hans-Thomas Tillschneider.

Published on: 02/09/2026 - 18:21 Modified on: 03/09/2026 - 07:32

Germany is preparing for a political earthquake. On September 6, the far right could take power in a German state for the first time since the end of the Second World War.

In the Land of Saxony-Anhalt, in former East Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) arrives, a few days before a decisive election, well ahead of the polls with nearly 40% of voting intentions.

“The AfD’s most overtly extreme program”

The approximately 2.2 million inhabitants of this region, the cradle of German Protestantism, will probably have to get used to the broad smile that never seems to leave Ulrich Siegmund's face. The head of the AfD list in Saxony-Anhalt is a social media star, a specialist in short phrases that hit the mark, and who presents himself as "a normal citizen" with whom any German should be able to identify.

The one whom the German press likes to nickname the "popstar" of the AfD dreams at 35 of becoming the youngest minister-president of a Land in the history of the country. To achieve this, he relies more on social networks than on his program.

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Ulrich Siegmund left it to another local personality to develop it. It was Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, often presented as the brains of the AfD in the region, who took up the challenge. According to German media, the thoughts of this 48-year-old politician are the main source of inspiration for "probably the most openly extreme program that the AfD has ever presented in an election", underlines Jan Niklas Reiche, political scientist and specialist on the extreme right at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, in Saxony-Anhalt.

More precisely, "it is a conservative-reactionary program which proposes to look back on 20 to 30 years of social progress, particularly in the field of recognition of the LGBTQ+ community and women's rights. It proposes to adopt a very anti-immigration approach and denies the urgency of acting against global warming", summarizes Sven Leunig, political scientist at the University of Jena who studied the AfD program for these regional elections.

If the far-right party actually wins the election on Sunday, it is largely the ideas of Hans-Thomas Tillschneider which will define the main political orientations of an entire Land. Especially if, as some polls suggest, the AfD is capable of governing alone.

From Timisoara to Moscow, via Damascus

And Hans-Thomas Tillschneider has ideas in spades. “If Ulrich Siegmund is the candidate who presents well and allows the pill to be passed on to the public, Hans-Thomas Tillshneider represents more the brains of this campaign,” assures Anna-Sophie Heinze, political scientist and specialist in the extreme right at the University of Lüneburg (Lower Saxony). “He considers himself to be at the intellectual vanguard of the AfD and sees himself as one of the thinking heads of the party in Saxony-Anhalt,” adds Jan Niklas Reiche.

Hans-Thomas Tillschneider indeed displays a full CV, and his career resembles that of a citizen of the world more than that of a German nationalist. Born in 1978 in Timisoara, among the German minority in Romania, Hans-Thomas Tillschneider became very interested in Islam during his university career.

Also read “Generation Deutschland”, or when the youth of the AfD pretends to buy behavior

He in fact studied Islamic and philosophy in Fribourg, Leipzig and… in Damascus in Syria. Back in Germany, he completed his studies with a thesis on a Muslim jurist from the 8th century. An academic past which has sometimes earned him the nickname "Dr. Far Right" in the German media, underlines the website The Pioneer in a long portrait dedicated to Hans-Thomas Tillschneider.

The general German public came to know him for something entirely different. In 2022, shortly after the start of Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Hans-Thomas Tillschneider was one of a handful of AfD members to travel to Moscow to demonstrate solidarity with Vladimir Putin. They even wanted to go to occupied Donbass, but the party leadership convinced them to give up.

Hans-Thomas Tillschneider assumes 100% his “Putinophilia”. In 2024, he demonstrated this again by visiting the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, located between Poland and Lithuania. Along with other members of the AfD, they wave Russian flags there as a sign of support for Moscow. The “Dr. Far Right” has thus earned a new nickname, that of “holy warrior of Moscow” in Germany, underlines The Pioneer.

Just a few days ago, a journalist from Bild magazine discovered that a Russian army mug was sitting on his desk. The video in which the politician tries to justify himself has made the rounds on social networks.

This pro-Russian tropism is also felt in the AfD program in Saxony-Anhalt. The document "calls for an end to sanctions against Russia, wants Ukrainian refugees to be treated like other refugees, and proposes strengthening the learning of Russian in schools", lists Sven Leunig.

But for the elections in Saxony-Anhalt, Hans-Thomas Tillschneider wants above all to lead the fight for “culture”. “If the AfD wins, it should inherit a super Ministry of Culture, Education and Research,” underlines Jan Niklas Reiche.

Culture war

In its program, the far-right party in Saxony-Anhalt has made culture its third priority, behind “family and children” and “immigration and remigration”. No other party places so much emphasis on culture, and it is even a local specificity of the AfD. “In Berlin, it is on page 104 out of 114 of the program, and in the neighboring state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the AfD mentions it at the bottom of page 92 out of 93,” underlines the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Hans-Thomas Tillschneider thus promised to stop “spending public funds to promote anti-German art” – without defining what he believes would fall into this category.

The AfD program also designates as a target the Bauhaus, this emblematic German architectural movement born in 1919. A concern which may seem surprising in the context of an election in 2026. Hans-Thomas Tillschneider justifies it by arguing that the Bauhaus represents "modernity which goes astray", which is "a resumption of the vocabulary used by the Nazis to criticize this movement", specifies Jan Niklas Reiche. The Third Reich had also banned this architectural movement in the 1930s, calling it “degenerate art”.

The AfD ideologue has planned other nods for those who are nostalgic for this dark period of German history. This is particularly the case in Education, where “he wants more Bismarck and less Hitler”, notes Jan Niklas Reiche.

Emphasizing culture is also a traditional strategy of the far right. “It benefits much more from these themes – whether on gender issues or rather more socio-cultural themes relating to immigration – than in the economic field. Culture is often a theme which allows the far right to mobilize,” estimates Anna-Sophie Heinze.

For this expert, the cultural battle is important because it allows the AfD “to present German identity as a very homogeneous cultural whole”. Hans-Thomas Tillschneider thus defends the idea that "German identity" must be restored through a "patriotic cultural policy".

Another advantage of culture is that “it is a theme that allows us to act at the regional level and take concrete measures,” assures Anna-Sophie Heinze. This is not the case for most proposals relating to immigration, for example, which are the responsibility of the federal government.

But for the experts interviewed, the program presented by Hans-Thomas Tillschneider has a national vocation. In the event of an AfD victory, "the Land of Saxony-Anhalt would be a laboratory to test the recommended measures and to continue the process of normalization" of extremist discourse, warns Jan Niklas Reiche.

And if it is the AfD of Saxony-Anhalt which manages to win a first major election for the German far right, it will do so behind the charming smile of Ulrich Siegmund and the assumed radicalism of Hans-Thomas Tillschneider.

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