Germany: Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, the ideologist behind the AFD’s plans in Saxony-Anhalt

Germany is bracing itself for a political earthquake. The Alternative for Germany (AFD) party could potentially become the first far-right party to form a state government since World War II.

In the state of Saxony-Anhalt, in what was formerly East Germany, the party is polling above 40% ahead of key regional elections.

'Clearly the AFD's most extreme programme'

The region – the cradle for German Protestantism, is home to about 2.2 million people and the population will likely have to adapt to the smiling face of Ulrich Siegmund. The AFD's top candidate is a star on social media and a specialist of punchlines. He presents himself as a “normal citizen” which all Germans can relate to.  

The “popstar” of the AFD – as the German press calls him – hopes to become the party's first ever state premier. To reach his objective, Siegmund is banking on the buzz he creates on TikTok, Instagram and other platforms more than on his party's agenda.

That task has been left up to another local politician. Hans-Thomas Tillschneider has often been described as the mastermind of the AFD in Saxony-Anhalt. The ideas of the 48-year-old politician have been the principal sources of inspiration for what is “probably the most openly extreme platform the AFD ever presented during an election” according to German media, said Jan Niklas Reiche, a political scientist and specialist of the far-right at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Saxony-Anhalt.

“It's a conservative-reactionary programme that proposes rolling back on 20 to 30 years of social progress, especially in recognition of the LGBTQ+ community and women's rights. It advocates a strongly anti-immigration stance and denies the urgency of acting on global warming,” said Sven Leunig, a political scientist at the University of Jena, who studied the AFD's agenda for the upcoming regional elections.

If the far-right party wins the election on Sunday, Tillschneider's ideas will largely shape the general political direction of Saxony-Anhalt, especially if the AFD – as some polls suggest – will govern alone.

From Timisoara to Moscow, via Damas

And Tillschneider is rarely short of ideas. “If Ulrich Siegmund is the presentable candidate who sells the party's agenda to the public, Hans-Thomas Tillshneider is more of the mastermind of this campaign,” said Anna-Sophie Heinze, a political scientist and specialist on the far-right at the University of Lüneburg (Lower Saxony). “He considers himself as the AFD's intellectual avant-garde and sees himself as one of the masterminds of the party in Saxony-Anhalt,” said Reiche.

Tillshneider has a lengthy CV that reflects the path of a world citizen more than one of a German nationalist. The politician was born in 1978 in Timisoara, Romania, to ethnic Germans. During his university years, he became profoundly interested in Islam.

Read more In a former East German mining town, political extremes entice disenchanted voters

Tillshneider went on to pursue studies in Islam and philosophy in Fribourg and Leipzig before travelling to the Syrian capital of Damas. Upon his return to Germany, he completed his studies with a thesis on an 18^th century Muslim jurist. His scholarly past has led the German media to call him “Dr. Extreme right”, as website, The Pioneer underlined in a recent portrait of the politician.

Yet the German public have become familiar with him in another context. Shortly after the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Tillschneider was among the handful of AFD members who travelled to Moscow to demonstrate their solidarity with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The lawmaker even sought to visit the occupied Donbas, but his party's leadership finally discouraged him from going.  

Today, Tillschneider fully embraces his pro-Russian position. In 2024, he visited the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, situated between Poland and Lithuania. Along with other AFD members, they brandished Russian flags in support of Moscow. “Dr. Extreme right” thus became “Moscow's warrior saint” in Germany, wrote The Pioneer.

Several days ago, a journalist from the magazine Bild discovered a Russian army mug in Tillschneider's home. A video in which the deputy tried to downplay the significance of the find has made the rounds on social media.

The pro-Russian tendancy is clearly visible in the AFD's agenda in Saxony-Anhalt. The document “calls for: an end to sanctions against Russia, Ukrainian refugees to be treated like other refugees and more Russian to be taught in schools”, said Leunig.  

Above anything, Tillschneider aims to lead a “culture” battle during the elections in Saxony-Anhalt. “If the AFD wins, he will inherit the expansive Ministry of Education (which oversees higher education, research and cultural affairs in Saxony-Anhalt),” said Reiche.  

Culture wars

In its agenda, the far-right party in Saxony-Anhalt chose culture as its third priority, behind “family and children” and “immigration and remigration”. No other party has placed such a strong accent on culture; it is even a local particularity of the AFD. “The programme for Berlin mentions it on page 104 out of 114 pages. In the neighbouring state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the AFD mentions it on page 92 out of 93,” wrote daily newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Tillschneider has promised to stop “public funding promoting anti-German art” – without ever defining what kind of art falls into this category.

Bauhaus, the emblematic German architectural movement which began in 1919, has also fallen into the AFD's crosshairs. The party's focus on the movement may seem surprising in the context of a 2026 election. Tillschneider has justified their concern, saying that Bauhaus represents “a modernity which is losing its way” – something which “takes up the vocabulary used by the Nazis to criticize the movement”, said Reiche. The Third Reich banned the artistic movement in the 1930s, calling it “degenerate art”.

The AFD's ideologist has also planned further nods to those who might harbor nostalgia for that dark period of German history. This is particularly the case in the domain of education, where he “wants more Bismarck and less Hitler”, said Reiche.

Culture is often a signature issue of the far-right. “The extreme right underlines these issues – whether it's gender or sociocultural issues related to immigration – than on the economy. Culture is often an issue that allows the far-right to garner support,” said Heinze.

According to the expert, the culture war is important because it allows the AFD “to present German identity as very homogeneous”. And Tillschneider defends the idea that “German identity” should be restored through a “patriotic political culture”.

The other advantage of culture as a political flashpoint is that it “allows regional action through concrete measures”, said Heinze. In contrast, immigration falls under the responsibility of the federal government.

Yet for the experts interviewed, Tillschneider's agenda is national in scope. In the case of an AFD victory on Sunday, “the state of Saxony-Anhalt will become a laboratory for the recommended measures and for the continuation of normalising” extremist discourse, said Reiche.

And if the AFD in Saxony-Anhalt manages to achieve a major election victory for the German far-right, its success will be largely in part to the combination of Siegmund's winning smile and Tillschneider's blatant radicality.

This article was adapted from the original in French.