Full Breakdown
AfD’s Cultural Funding Proposal Ahead of Saxony-Anhalt’s September 6 Election
8/7/2026, 8:58:54 PM
Core Policy Proposal and Election Context
The party plans to replace the current “moderndenken” (thinking modern) image campaign with “deutschdenken” (thinking German), a slogan that historically echoes Adolf Hitler’s 1938 Reichenberger Rede. The program labels the Bauhaus school as “a controversial school of architecture,” criticises the state’s emphasis on the Bauhaus in tourism promotion, and describes Germany’s Holocaust-remembrance culture as a “perpetuation of a guilt complex” that hinders a “stable national identity.”
Official Statements & Policy Details
AfD representatives argue that the new funding criteria will protect “patriotic cultural policy” and prevent what they term “anti-German art.” The party’s draft requires artists and institutions to sign a declaration affirming loyalty to a German cultural vision before receiving public money. In the program, Bauhaus is singled out for down-playing, while the proposed “deutschdenken” slogan would foreground figures such as Henry I, Otto I, Luther, Bismarck and Nietzsche.
Opposition from Cultural Leaders
Cultural institutions in Saxony-Anhalt have warned that the policy threatens artistic freedom. Barbara Steiner, director of the Bauhaus Foundation, notes that the AfD’s criticism mirrors language used a century ago against the Bauhaus. Annegret Laabs, director of the Kunstmuseum Magdeburg and spokesperson for the “Kultur ist Vielfalt und Heimat” initiative, says the measures create genuine fear among artists and stress that cultural work depends on taxpayer funding. Sabine Schramm, director of the Magdeburg puppet theatre, argues that restricting art to a narrow national definition would erase decades of free, boundary-crossing cultural practice.
Verbatim Quotes
- “Anti-German art is German art that doesn't want to be German.” — Tillschneider
- “The AfD's criticism of Bauhaus picks up on criticism from 100 years ago; their wording is similar,” — Barbara Steiner, director of the Bauhaus Foundation
- “As cultural practitioners, cultural initiators and artists, we can say that we are now genuinely afraid, because what's being triggered there is, in fact, the idea that art and culture must be 'German,'” — Annegret Laabs, director of the Kunstmuseum Magdeburg
- “We all know that what we do — from theaters to museums to libraries — is paid for with taxpayer money. It wouldn't exist otherwise,” — Annegret Laabs, director of the Kunstmuseum Magdeburg
