AfD Saxony-Anhalt: Four days before the state election, the party is polling at 42 percent. The CDU stands at 22 percent in the latest major poll. This means that on September 6, 2026, the issue is no longer merely a strong protest result, but the real possibility that the AfD could lead a state government for the first time. For Jewish life, this raises a question that is more complicated than the usual German left-right framework: How credible is a party as an ally of Israel if parts of its historical and memory policies are simultaneously sharply criticized by Jewish organizations?

This very contradiction makes Saxony-Anhalt a political test case. A state government does not decide everything. But it has considerable influence precisely in the areas of education, culture, civic education and parts of memory policy. And that is where some of the AfD’s most controversial plans lie.

Another fact is part of this starting point: Since 2023, the Saxony-Anhalt Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified the AfD state association as a confirmed far-right extremist organization. The authority justifies this, among other things, by citing attacks on human dignity and the principles of democracy. The AfD rejects the classification and considers it politically motivated. This disagreement does not initially change the existing official classification.

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Saxony-Anhalt could become a political test case

The figures are clear. In the latest Saxony-Anhalt trend poll by Infratest dimap the AfD reaches 42 percent, the CDU 22 percent. The Left is at eleven percent, the SPD at eight and the Greens at six percent. According to this poll, the BSW and FDP would fail to clear the five-percent threshold.

The balance of power is not reflected only in one institute’s findings. The ZDF Politbarometer conducted by the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen put the AfD at 40 percent and the CDU at 23 percent at the end of August. The individual figures differ, but the basic political constellation does not: In several surveys, the AfD is clearly ahead by a wide margin.

A poll is nevertheless not an election result. And becoming the strongest party does not automatically mean forming the government. An AfD absolute majority is considered rather unlikely according to current projections. Without its own majority, it would depend on a coalition partner, toleration or other parliamentary support. If the so-called firewall of the other parties remains in place, even an election winner can end up in opposition.

How many parties actually enter the state parliament is therefore important. If several smaller parties fail to clear the five-percent threshold, less than 50 percent of the votes cast can be enough for an absolute majority of the seats. Conversely, the absence of a partner significantly limits the room for political maneuver.

The issue, therefore, is not an AfD government ruling alone that has already been decided. It is that the possibility of an AfD-led government is, just days before the election, realistic enough for its concrete plans to be taken seriously for the first time.

Siegmund is the face, Tillschneider shapes education policy

Ulrich Siegmund is the lead candidate and the publicly visible face of the campaign. Voters are choosing with him the prospect of a possible AfD minister-president.

For the question of education, culture and memory policy, however, another name is at least as important: Hans-Thomas Tillschneider. The scholar of Islam is the AfD parliamentary group’s spokesperson on education policy and is one of the state association’s influential figures in terms of policy. Several media outlets have identified him as a possible education or culture minister in the event of the party taking over the government. No official cabinet nomination has yet been made.

Tillschneider summed up the reweighting of history lessons he wants, speaking to Deutschlandfunk, as follows: “More Bismarck, less Hitler.”

This is not merely a sentence tossed out spontaneously. The Saxony-Anhalt AfD government program contains a separate chapter on revising history curricula. Under the heading “More 1813 and 1871,” greater weight is to be given to 19th-century German history.

This does not mean that the party is saying it wants to remove the period of National Socialism from the curriculum. Tillschneider explicitly emphasizes that this period is part of German history. In his account, however, it should not overshadow other periods.

That is open to debate. History lessons do in fact consist of more than twelve years of German history. The decisive point, therefore, is not that more will be said about Bismarck in the future. What matters is the overall political concept in which this demand is embedded.

When memory becomes a “guilt complex”

In the Saxony-Anhalt AfD government program, Germany’s previous process of coming to terms with its past is associated with an enduring “guilt complex”. According to the party, this development has contributed to national pride being regarded as suspect and positive references to German history before 1933 being avoided.

The AfD wants to counter this with a more strongly patriotic cultural policy.

The direction is particularly clear in the case of the State Agency for Civic Education. The AfD does not merely want to reorganize it administratively. The institution is to be abolished in its current form and replaced by a “State Institute for Civic Education and Cultural Identity.” This demand appears both in the government program and in an earlier motion by the AfD parliamentary group in the state parliament.

The State Agency currently supports, among other things, civic education projects and school trips to Nazi memorial sites. Abolishing the agency would not automatically end such trips. But it would change the institutional basis, funding logic and political direction of state educational work.

And the government program is by no means abstract at this point.

• The federal flag is to be raised at public schools on every school day. Singing the national anthem together is to become a fixed part of school celebrations.
• According to the AfD’s vision, no more than 25 percent of a cohort should attend the academic-track secondary school.
• Compulsory schooling is to be supplemented or effectively replaced by a compulsory education requirement. Parents are to be allowed to choose between school-based and home education, with children taught at home to be examined regularly.
• The network “School without Racism” is explicitly criticized in the program as part of those structures that, according to the AfD, would be supported by the State Agency and politically left-wing.
• Associations receiving institutional or project-based funding are to be required in future to affirm their commitment to the democratic order and a “patriotic basic attitude.”
• Curricula are to convey more local history, German national history and national identity.

One can approve of some of these proposals, reject others and seriously debate still others. But taken together, they show: This is not about a minor administrative reform. The AfD is describing a different idea of the cultural and historical identity that state institutions should convey.

What the Jewish communities themselves say

Up to this point, the debate could be treated as a dispute among parties, academics and political observers. That would, however, be incomplete. The people whose safety and future are being discussed here live in Saxony-Anhalt.

The State Association of Jewish Communities in Saxony-Anhalt has presented its own election questionnaire ahead of the state election. It asks the parties, among other things, about combating antisemitism, freedom of religion, security and the future of Jewish life in the state.

The chair of the state association, Inessa Myslitska, says she respects every democratic election decision. At the same time, she says clearly that an AfD-led state government would cause her considerable concern about democratic culture, memorial culture, minority protection and the open society.

One detail of her criticism is also noteworthy: According to Deutsche Welle, Judaism and Jewish life do not appear in the Saxony-Anhalt AfD government program. Christianity and Islam, by contrast, are discussed in detail in several separate program items.

Rimma Fil, managing director of the state association, also expresses her concern in very personal terms. The possibility that the AfD could become the strongest political force would be a “reason for sleepless nights”. At the same time, she warns against equating an election victory with the actual ability to govern. Without structures, expertise and administrative competence, many political demands would initially remain slogans.

Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, goes even further. Shortly before the election, he called Siegmund and Tillschneider “opponents of the open society” and explicitly warned against giving the AfD political responsibility.

One can share these political assessments or disagree with them. But anyone writing about the possible consequences for Jewish life should not merely make the Jewish communities the subject of the debate. Their voices belong right at its center.

Jewish life depends on more than memorial sites

The practical significance of a state government also extends beyond history lessons.

In April 2026, the state parliament adopted a revised state treaty with the Jewish community. It regulates key aspects of cooperation between the state and Jewish communities for ten years, including culture, the preservation of Jewish heritage, education and encounters.

There are also agreements on financing security measures at synagogues and Jewish institutions. Guarding costs, structural and technical security measures, and long-term planning security are therefore not abstract debates, but very concrete state responsibilities.

In addition, there is the State Program for Jewish Life in Saxony-Anhalt and against Antisemitism. It brings together projects from various ministries, promotes the visibility of Jewish life and has its own point of contact in the State Chancellery. As recently as June 2026, the state government presented the third implementation report.

A new state government could not simply make existing state treaties disappear at a press conference. Laws and contractual obligations remain in force even after a change of government. But it could select personnel, set political priorities, shape budgets, alter funding programs and decide which projects are expanded or scaled back within the legally permissible framework.

That is precisely where memory policy becomes the practice of government.

The Israeli flag and memory policy are two different things

The Saxony-Anhalt AfD rejects the accusation that it is antisemitic. At the same time, the party has for years presented itself conspicuously as a supporter of Israel.

This point must not be omitted simply because it does not fit neatly into a convenient political pigeonhole.

Within the AfD, there are politicians who clearly identify Islamist antisemitism, defend Israel’s right to self-defense and, particularly since the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, in some cases take a significantly clearer pro-Israel stance than representatives of other German parties.

Nor can it be seriously denied that Islamist, left-wing and Israel-related antisemitism are real problems in Germany.

The reporting office RIAS Saxony-Anhalt documented a total of 270 antisemitic incidents. Of 166 cases that could be assigned to a political or ideological background, 81 were attributed to a far-right background, 39 to the left-wing anti-imperialist spectrum and 30 to cross-spectrum anti-Israel activism.

Anyone who takes antisemitism seriously can therefore choose neither the right nor the left as the politically comfortable half of reality.

Jews do not become safer when Islamist or left-wing antisemitism is relativized. But they become no safer when an Israeli flag is automatically treated as a certificate of good standing for statements from one’s own political camp.

ℹ️ The figures show a broader problem

RIAS Saxony-Anhalt was able to politically classify 166 of the 270 documented antisemitic incidents in 2025. Eighty-one were classified as far-right, 39 as left-wing or anti-imperialist and 30 as cross-spectrum anti-Israel activism. Antisemitism in Saxony-Anhalt therefore cannot be reduced to a single political milieu.

The AJC sees a fundamental contradiction

At the end of August, the American Jewish Committee published an analysis by political scientist Lars Rensmann on antisemitism within the AfD.

Rensmann’s central thesis is not that the party constantly spreads overt hatred of Jews at the official level. Rather, he argues that antisemitic patterns of thought are expressed within a broader worldview through political codes, conspiracy narratives, historical revisionism and certain enemy images.

As examples, he cites terms and ideas surrounding alleged “globalist elites,” hidden financial powers and conspiracy narratives about a controlled population replacement.

This is a scholarly or political assessment of the AJC report, not a judicial finding about every member or voter of the AfD. This distinction is important.

It is noteworthy, however, that the contradiction between the solidarity with Israel displayed outwardly and other currents within the party is not being examined only by the AJC.

As early as 2025, Andreas Jacobs and Felix Bäuml of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation examined the AfD’s Israel policy in detail. Their analysis describes this solidarity in substantial part as instrumental. In the authors’ view, it serves, among other things, to legitimize hostility toward Muslims, attack political opponents and distract from extremist or antisemitic currents within the party itself.

This statement, too, is an analysis and not a court ruling. But it identifies a specific mechanism: Israel can be presented politically as a positive counter-image to Islam, while conspiracy narratives about “globalists,” elites or population replacement continue at the same time.

This sharpens the decisive question: Is support for the State of Israel actually sufficient to automatically derive from it a credible stance toward Jews, antisemitism and German memory culture?

Israel is not an argument against Germany’s past

One can fight Islamist antisemitism and reject antisemitic conspiracy ideologies from the right.

One can criticize the shocking hostility toward Israel in parts of the political left and still insist that remembrance of the Nazi crimes not be treated as an annoying obstacle to a new German national identity.

One can support Israel without turning the Jewish state into a domestic political seal of approval.

Israel does not exist so that German parties can use its flag to certify their own ideological respectability.

The Jewish state is not a political whitewashing machine.

This applies in every political direction. Anyone who relativizes Hamas terror under a Palestinian flag or holds Israeli Jews collectively responsible for the policies of their government does not become an anti-fascist simply by calling themselves one.

Conversely, problematic thinking on the political right does not disappear simply because someone demonstratively stands beside an Israeli flag.

The standard is the same. Antisemitism remains antisemitism, regardless of the political or religious milieu it comes from.

This should not really be a complicated insight. In Germany, apparently, one now regularly needs studies, panel discussions and roughly three political camps explaining to one another why only the other side has a problem.

Jewish life has long been under pressure

The debate is also not taking place in a vacuum.

Saxony-Anhalt knows the murderous reality of far-right extremism. On October 9, 2019, on Yom Kippur, a far-right attacker attempted to enter the synagogue in Halle. After he failed to do so, he murdered two people outside the synagogue.

At the same time, Israel-related antisemitism has increased sharply, particularly since October 7, 2023. RIAS Saxony-Anhalt documented a total of 122 incidents involving Israel-related antisemitism in 2025. The year before, there had been 68.

Jewish life is therefore under pressure from different directions.

That is precisely why the question of which political camp has the greater moral right to discover antisemitism among its opponents leads nowhere.

Antisemitism does not become harmless because it comes from the left. It does not become benign when it is justified in Islamist terms. And problematic ideas about history or conspiracy ideologies do not disappear because their proponents also support Israel.

What a state government can actually change about remembrance

Even a very strong election result would not give the AfD unlimited power.

Saxony-Anhalt remains bound by the Basic Law, federal law, the state constitution, existing state treaties and judicial oversight. A state government cannot simply suspend fundamental rights or ignore applicable federal law.

That does not mean, however, that a change of government would have no consequences.

Governments determine budgets. They fill senior positions. They run ministries. They amend administrative regulations and set political priorities.

In education, curricula and priorities can be changed. In culture, funding criteria can be reset. In civic education, the institutional structure can be reorganized. With regard to Jewish life, the state government helps decide how existing programs are implemented, how contacts and points of contact are resourced and which additional projects are funded.

Remembrance policy is created not only through major laws. It is created through teaching, funding decisions, personnel, institutions and the question of which history a state tells about itself.

A state government led by the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt would therefore genuinely be a political practical test.

Not of whether Germany would suddenly be a completely different country the morning after the election. Rather, of how far a programmatically announced cultural and educational-policy realignment could actually be implemented within the constitutional limits of a federal state.

Solidarity with Israel is important. But a credible fight against antisemitism begins where one names it even when it comes from one’s own political camp.

The standard applies to everyone

Solidarity with Israel is particularly important at a time when the Jewish state is being demonized in parts of Europe and its right to exist is once again being openly or implicitly called into question. That politicians clearly identify Islamist antisemitism and take Israel’s security interests seriously is therefore not an insignificant detail.

But solidarity with Israel can be credible only if it does not function selectively.

Anyone who wants to credibly stand alongside Israel and Jewish life must fight antisemitism everywhere: among Islamists, left-wing Israel-haters, far-right conspiracy ideologues and in their own political environment.

And they must accept that remembrance of the Shoah is not a re-education project directed against Germans today.

Germans living today bear no personal guilt for the crimes of their ancestors. Germany nevertheless bears historical responsibility for what was done in Germany’s name.

Being able to distinguish one from the other is not a “guilt complex.”

It is called historical maturity.