Yesterday, September 6, 2026, voters in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt went to the polls in a local election. The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party won 39 seats in the state's legislature, or 44% of the votes, giving AfD an all-but-conclusive majority, only three seats short of an absolute majority.
Ulrich Siegmund, the head of the party in Saxony-Anhalt, himself received 49% of the vote in his district.
The German political press is not happy. Der Spiegel — sort of Germany's Time — ran a cover story on August 14 calling him "the most dangerous man in Germany."
Der neue SPIEGEL ist da:
— DER SPIEGEL (@derspiegel) August 13, 2026
📍 Sachsen-Anhalt: Warum ist AfD-Mann Siegmund so erfolgreich?
📍 Drohnenfund in Leipzig: Was, wenn es wirklich Moskau war?
📍 Albanien: Scheitert das Bauprojekt der Trump-Familie an Massenprotesten?
Morgen am Kiosk, jetzt online: https://t.co/P4HepdSjhE pic.twitter.com/0KxIn0ErCC
The German press reaction was just short of panic. Tagesschau, the German news program, headlined its story "AfD heads see a clear government mandate." Die Zeit said, "AfD wins state election in Saxony-Anhalt, but failed to win an absolute majority." Siegmund took the seat from Thomas Staudt of the CDU (Christlich Demokratische Union). The CDU is the main center-right party — where "center-right" is a little to the left of the American Democratic Party.
Siegmund was just one race, but the CDU suffered a real electoral bloodbath. The head of the state party, Sven Schulze, lost his seat to AfD's Christian Mertens. German voters get two votes on the same ballot: one for a person in their district and one for a party. The district winner takes that local seat; the party vote decides how many seats the party gets overall, and the remaining seats are filled from a ranked party list published before the election, so Schulze will probably still have a seat from the party list.
Overall, CDU — which had control of the state — lost 41 seats. It won 0 district seats, so it fell from 40 to 15.
The CDU can only retain control of the state's legislature if it can form a coalition with every other party that won seats. That includes a new party, the BSW (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht), which split from the left over migration and NATO/Ukraine skepticism. The FDP (Freie Demokratische Partei) — a classical liberal party, not what we call "liberal" — got no seats at all. This was a major defeat, as FDP has been part of the CDU-SPD-FDP coalition that had governed until the election.
N-tv, a private news network sort of like Germany's CNN, had this to say:
When the CDU loses a state election, it always feeds back into federal politics — especially when the CDU is the party in government. What happened in Saxony-Anhalt, though, blows past anything seen before. The CDU there was cut in half; the AfD doubled. That doesn’t just raise questions. It puts federal politics itself in doubt.
Friedrich Merz, after all, is a historically unpopular chancellor. That has to do with broken campaign promises, clumsy communication, and sloppy craftsmanship. Best example: his sparse campaign appearances in Saxony-Anhalt. Party colleagues there hid him on factory visits and carefully avoided any contact with actual people. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern recently showed what happens next: whistles and boos.
The current German government and associated NGOs are trying to formally ban the AfD. This started when the Verfassungsschutz, the domestic intelligence service, tried to classify the AfD as "confirmed right-wing extremist", although it was blocked for the moment after the AfD sued. But several state branches — including Saxony-Anhalt — are already classified as confirmed extremist. An attempt was made in the Bundestag to examine formally banning AfD, and an NGO, the GFF (Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte), published a 1,500-page legal analysis supporting the potential ban. So far, the government hasn't attempted to actually ban the AfD.
It's easy to understand why Germany is suspicious of "right-wing" parties, especially after the National Socialist "Nazi" party was defined as "right wing." But the AfD is more like the MAGA movement, and the AfD is certainly courting the link — which is naturally used by the legacy press as a smear.
The curse "may you live in interesting times" should probably be translated to German.
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