‘Culture is primarily a bestower of national identity,' declared the AfD culture policy spokesperson Hans-Thomas Tillschneider in the regional parliament of Saxony-Anhalt in May. ‘German culture, also and especially in Saxony-Anhalt, is what enables me to understand myself as a German. Culture in Saxony-Anhalt is German culture, and cultural policy must reflect that.' His party, Tillschneider said, would amend the corresponding legislation ‘to give it a clear definition of culture'.
A clear definition of culture? The phrasing alone reveals the mindset. How could anyone presume to define culture conclusively – let alone on behalf of an entire federal state?
It is no surprise that the plans are being put forward by a party congratulated for its victory in the regional election in Saxony-Anhalt in early September by Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Elon Musk. A free arts and culture scene is a thorn in the side of the world's authoritarians. By its very nature, independent culture resists any form of regimentation and thus always harbours the seeds of revolt. Containing and controlling culture is therefore a top priority when the goal is to create a society in which no one dares put their head above the parapet.
Both history and the present provide ample examples. We need only look at the USA or Russia, where the ‘national' label is today used to ruthlessly suppress and purge anything deemed not to belong. The NSDAP, too, began waging a culture war before it came to power. A central figure in this was Wilhelm Frick – a convicted traitor involved in Hitler's attempted coup, who became State Minister for the Interior and Public Education in Thuringia in January 1930 after the NSDAP secured 11.3 per cent of the vote. Hitler made the party's participation in a national-conservative coalition conditional on its being given these two ministries, threatening new elections should this demand be refused. He understood that the party's participation in government could be used into a springboard to power and, once his loyal follower had been appointed, announced that Frick would implement a ‘process of nationalization with ruthless determination'.
And so it was. On Frick's orders, ‘un-German' paintings vanished from museums and Erich Maria Remarque's anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front was removed from libraries and school curricula. The Bauhaus in Weimar was deemed ‘un-German' and closed down, and schools were required to hold ‘German prayers' for the Volk and the fatherland. The goal, according to Frick, was to prevent the ‘contamination of the German national character by uncultured foreign influences, using the powers of the police if necessary', and thus to ‘preserve, foster and strengthen German art, German culture and German identity'.
Love for the homeland
With all due caution, the similarities between Frick's Nazi policies in Thuringia nearly a hundred years ago and the AfD's planned cultural policies for Saxony-Anhalt today are striking: ‘un-German culture' becomes ‘anti-German culture'; ‘nationalization' is re-termed ‘patriotic cultural policy' and ‘the crucial prerequisite for a patriotic shift across the board'; amendments to the state constitution and school law would require children ‘to be educated in the spirit of love for their homeland and the German people'. Other plans include a #thinkGerman campaign to highlight Saxony-Anhalt's contributions to ‘the development of the German nation', and state funding awarded only to art that ‘contributes to the formation of German identity'.
People lacking an affinity for modern art or experimental theatre may well find the AfD's ‘patriotic cultural policy' appealing. But what is astonishing is that few seem to be concerned about the massive state paternalism and control that such a policy would entail – even though the AfD consistently portrays itself as spearheading the fight for freedom. As for the kind of art that meets the prescribed criteria, that remains vague: for the AfD, the label ‘German' seems to suffice.
The Bauhaus does not count, at any rate, despite being based in Dessau since 1925. In advance of its centenary last year, the AfD dismissed the Bauhaus as a ‘mistake of modernity'. Tillschneider, who holds a doctorate in Islamic Studies, claimed that the Bauhaus ‘deliberately set out not to be German' and that it ‘cursed the concepts of homeland and tradition'. Tillschneider played a key role in drafting the party's election manifesto for Saxony-Anhalt – the most radical in the history of the party so far. Page after page contains promises the AfD couldn't possibly keep, even if it were to gain power, since the necessary legal authority does not exist at the state level.
However, culture and education does fall under state jurisdiction, meaning that the party could quicky create facts on the ground. It would be seen not only to be fulfilling campaign promises but, more importantly still, to be making progress towards its vision of a Germany purged of everything ‘anti-German'.
In addition to the long-standing fantasy of an ‘ethnically pure' German nation – something völkisch hardliners were already dreaming of in the nineteenth century – the AfD's cultural policy aims to overcome the nation's supposed ‘guilt complex'. This, it claims, prevents Germans from developing patriotic self-confidence – a decades-long staple of far-right rhetoric. Björn Höcke's call for a ‘180-degree shift in the politics of remembrance' is in this tradition.
Holocaust denial and the open glorification of National Socialism – as was once practised by the radical right – risks incurring a party ban or even imprisonment. Instead, today's New Right talks about ‘a thousand years of glorious German history', in comparison with which ‘the twelve years' were no more than a ‘drop of bird shit', as former AfD leader Alexander Gauland put it.
More Bismarck, less Hitler
The programme of the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt refers to the ‘perpetuation of a guilt complex' allegedly caused by the public process of confronting the Nazi past – a process that the party claims has resulted in national pride being viewed as inherently disreputable, and in politicians avoiding any positive references to ‘our rich history before 1933'. Thus deprived of its ‘capacity for self-assertion', Germany has been ‘left defenceless against the influence of rainbow ideology'. The party's promise: ‘The AfD in Saxony-Anhalt will heal this identity disorder through a new, patriotic cultural policy.'
Sure enough, the treatment it prescribes is to look back to the past, to ‘the good sides of German history'. These, according to the AfD, are mostly to be found in the nineteenth century, specifically in the Wars of Liberation and the German Empire, described by Höcke as ‘the heyday of our Volk'. Hence the AfD is calling for ‘More 1813 and 1871' in history lessons. In other words: more Prussia and Bismarck, less Hitler.
In Saxony-Anhalt the party is on the verge of being able to mandate a school curriculum in which history lessons are geared towards national pride and omit any reference to the Nazi period. At the same time, the AfD proposes to cut funding for programmes promoting anti-racism and civil courage, claiming these pressurize pupils to ‘submit to the dominance of leftwing ideas', as the election manifesto puts it.
For the AfD, these ideas include the equal participation of people with disabilities. The party promises to ‘end the “inclusion experiment†and expand special needs schools'. The corresponding section of its manifesto is headed, ‘No experiments on our children!' The explicit exclusion and devaluation in these statements should send a shiver down every spine.
It does not require the Federal Constitutional Court to point out that the AfD manifesto violates the first article of the German Basic Law as well as countless other laws. As a society, we cannot remain indifferent in the face of plans to exclude children with disabilities from the mainstream school system.
Treating culture and education policy as a relatively harmless side issue in comparison with the AfD's plans for mass deportations fails to recognize just how dangerous the party's cultural agenda is. The direction of travel is clear: by means of indirect censorship through the withdrawal of funding, the termination of the Interstate Broadcasting Agreement, the dismantling of the State Agency for Civic Education and the pressurising of volunteers, teachers and schools, the AfD is seeking to clear the way for a new, authoritarian social order. And Saxony-Anhalt is just the beginning.
At a secret meeting in Potsdam in November 2023, Ulrich Siegmund said he would use his image as ‘an ordinary guy everyone can identify with' to garner support for his goals before introducing his actual, radical agenda ‘via the back door'.
Far-right thinkers like Götz Kubitschek have long preached that the transformation of society begins in people's minds and that gaining power requires setting the agenda and controlling public discourse. The main reason the AfD has been so successful in this is that many other politicians have adopted its positions, with the result that it has long exerted an indirect influence on government. This can be seen most clearly in the debate over migration, which has dominated election campaigns for years – as if we had no other problems. Almost all parties have jumped on the bandwagon, the sole result being that rightwing ideas have now become respectable. What kind of warning about the AfD could possibly still break through with voters?
The New Right has succeeded in shifting the discourse on other issues too. The AfD brazenly reinterprets historical events, turning them into vehicles for its anti-democratic, racist messaging. It claims, for instance, to be mounting resistance in the same way as Hans and Sophie Scholl; or fighting for freedom like the revolutionaries of 1848 and the Neue Forum in the GDR. Its meeting room in the Bundestag is named after the ‘Paulskirche'; in election campaigns, especially in the East, it draws heavily on references to 1989 and the slogan, ‘We are the people!' The AfD even puts Willy Brandt on its posters, along with his famous phrase ‘Dare more democracy' – despite the fact he represents everything the party fights and despises.
Such appropriations help the AfD meet the expectations of its far-right followers while also making further inroads into the political mainstream. This is reflected in both its core programme and election manifestos. The tactic is evidently successful in masking a fundamental contradiction: that, while posing as the guardian of democracy, the AfD is doing everything in its power to discredit and destroy the system.
Many people – including some in positions of political responsibility – still believe the AfD is a democratic party, simply because it competes in elections and holds seats in various parliaments. Such naivety is a luxury that only those can afford who are white, hetero, able-bodied and don't have a child with a learning difficulty. For those to whom this does not apply, the AfD already poses a threat. The protection of minorities is an essential component of liberal democracies. The cultural policies being proposed by the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt declare the exact opposite. Their authors are not democrats, nor do they harbour good intentions towards Germany and its people.
We clearly cannot rely on the political firewall to hold. Democratic civil society must step up and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with people from all ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds and all political persuasions to confront the far-right menace. We can no longer allow ourselves to be driven apart by culture wars. Because the poison of division – including between West and East – has only one beneficiary. And that is the AfD.
