AfD strategist in Saxony-Anhalt election pushes to shrink Germany's Nazi-era memory culture
Ahead of a Sept. 6 election in Saxony-Anhalt, far-right AfD figure Hans-Thomas Tillschneider is driving a plan to reduce the prominence of Nazi history in Germany's national identity. With the party polling close to an outright majority, he could soon gain real power over school curricula and cultural funding.
Saxony-Anhalt holds a state election on Sept. 6, with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) polling so strongly it is within reach of an outright parliamentary majority. Behind the party's governing blueprint stands 48-year-old lawmaker Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, considered a leading candidate to head a future ministry overseeing school curricula and cultural funding in the state.
Tillschneider describes Germany's Nazi past as a kind of "undead entity" that abnormally persists in public life. While denying any wish to make Germans "forget" this history, the changes he champions point in that direction: shifting the emphasis of history lessons, cutting funding for what the party calls "anti-German art," and developing a "patriotic tourism" strategy for the state.
The AfD's program also calls for restoring and funding monuments honoring soldiers who died in both world wars, and had previously floated — before removing it from the final manifesto — a slogan calling for lessons with "more Bismarck, less Hitler."
Born in Romania to a German-speaking minority family and later a scholar of Islamic studies, Tillschneider was previously linked to the AfD's dissolved hardline faction, Der Flügel, alongside politician Björn Höcke. He argues eastern Germany, where the AfD is strongest, is best positioned to lead this shift in national identity, citing residents' experience living through the collapse of the East German regime after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
At a party campaign event, Saxony-Anhalt's top AfD candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, publicly thanked Tillschneider for the hundreds of hours spent drafting the party's governing program. German domestic intelligence has classified the state AfD branch as an extremist organization, a designation the party rejects. Beyond identity politics, many supporters cite economic decline and dissatisfaction with government policy on refugees and energy as reasons for backing the party.
