The AfD’s „government programme“ for Saxony-Anhalt
The high level of support for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in polls and elections provides an opportunity to examine its positions on dealing with the colonial past. Current forecasts for the election in Saxony-Anhalt on 6 September 2026 suggest that the party could soon gain significant influence in state politics. This is relevant in terms of memory culture because the German federal system stipulates that cultural policy is the responsibility of the federal states. The party’s election programme – referred to as its „government programme“ – highlights a dilemma: in principle, the AfD rejects state responsibility for cultural policy, but wants to take advantage of the opportunities this offers:
„The AfD is fundamentally critical of the cultural sovereignty of the federal states. However, what is a curse is also a blessing: since culture in the Federal Republic of Germany is a matter for the states, a victory in the 2026 state elections will give us a wide range of opportunities to implement our cultural policy ideas.“ (page 46)
Election programme for Saxony-Anhalt
The draft, which is around 150 pages long, is to be discussed at the party conference in mid-April 2026. It is striking that the text is worded extremely cautiously. Numerous passages emphasise that the party’s positions are within the legal and constitutional corridors. It seems reasonable to conclude that this approach was chosen in order to avoid providing any grounds for a possible application for a ban before the Federal Constitutional Court.
The centrality of culture
According to the AfD’s understanding, culture is the decisive factor in the formation of individual mentalities, collective identities and shared visions of the future. The desired social restructuring therefore requires a policy that makes ethnic self-assurance and a positive reinterpretation of history the linchpin for profound change:
„National masochism and a lack of self-confidence, however, are based on cultural preconditions. The ultimate causes of the current misery are therefore cultural in nature and can therefore only be remedied by targeted work on the cultural preconditions… The AfD Saxony-Anhalt will remedy this identity disorder through a new, patriotic cultural policy… This is the decisive prerequisite for a patriotic turnaround in all areas…“ (p. 45)
A critical article by Nils Schniederjann
is entitled Cultural Policy as a Weapon and states:
„The AfD state association thus adopts what are probably the two most important new right-wing theses: first, that cultural change must precede political change. And second, that it is essentially the disturbed relationship with the past that prevents Germans from returning to their former greatness.“
Rejection of provenance research
The cultural policy section of the election manifesto contains little concrete information on colonialism. One relevant statement refers to the cancellation of the state subsidy for the German Lost Art Foundation (DZK), which is headquartered in Magdeburg with a branch office in Berlin. The financial contribution from the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the centre is based, is currently used to cover rental costs:
„The state of Saxony-Anhalt currently supports the ‚German Lost Art Foundation‘ with a subsidy of 73,500 euros per year. We will completely eliminate this subsidy.“ (p. 47)
The party’s position is thus directed against all areas of provenance research funded by the DZK on unlawful expropriations during the three phases of state injustice – colonialism, National Socialism and the Soviet occupation zone/German Democratic Republic. In 2025, the DZK approved a total of around €2.8 million for twelve research projects on cultural and collection assets from colonial contexts.
German colonial crimes
In its rejection of German responsibility for colonial injustice, the party departs from established, widely recognised historical facts, such as the genocide in German South West Africa (now Namibia) and the Majimaji War in the southern part of German East Africa, now Tanzania:
„The construction of colonial guilt is particularly absurd.“ (p. 47)
With this statement, the AfD also contradicts the research findings of the Bundeswehr’s Centre for Military History and Social Sciences in Potsdam, which in 2024 launched a research group focusing on German military in colonial operations 1880-1918 – A continuum of violence. The journal of the Centre Military History
(issue 3/2024) states, for example, on the genocide in present-day Namibia:
„The actual battle at Waterberg is only one episode in the colonial war that took place between 1904 and 1908 in what is now Namibia. Nevertheless, it has become a symbol of war and genocide… Even by conservative estimates, the genocide killed 50 to 60 per cent of the Ovaherero population and about a third of the Nama.“
The report by the Bundeswehr Centre on the presentation of the book Kolonialkriege in Ostafrika 1885–1914 (Colonial Wars in East Africa 1885–1914) by Tanja Bührer, commissioned by the Centre, also leaves no doubt about the systemic nature of Germany’ colonial violence:
„The ‚letter of protection‘ for East Africa issued by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1895 was ultimately the starting signal for the violent appropriation of the country. Military expeditions first established a colonial army under German leadership with African soldiers, who repeatedly subjected the country to violence that took on genocidal proportions.“
Restitution of cultural belongings
The party sees no reason to return belongings that were brought to Germany during German colonial rule:
„As Mathias Brodkorb has shown, almost all items from colonial countries were acquired legally.“ (p. 47)
It cites former SPD politician Mathias Brodkorb as its key witness. In his work
Postkoloniale Mythen. Auf den Spuren eines modischen Narrativs (Postcolonial Myths. On the trail of a fashionable narrative) he writes about the supposedly positive effects of colonialism. However, as countless eyewitness accounts and scientific studies prove, the appropriation of cultural belongings in former German colonies often involved the use of violence and coercion. As a matter of principle, all transactions in colonialism are subject to the structural principle of asymmetrical power distribution between colonisers and colonised.
An example of the widespread violence involved in the transfer of cultural belongings to Germany can be found in the Atlas of Absence, compiled by a German-Cameroonian research group, which documents numerous cases of looted art in German museums. The Joint Guidelines on the Handling of Cultural Assets and Human Remains from Colonial Contexts, adopted in October 2025 by the Federal Government, the Länder and local authority associations, also emphasise forms of colonial appropriation that are legally or ethically unacceptable:
„Due to the time that has elapsed since the appropriation, missing or imprecise documentation, or other circumstances, there may be gaps and ambiguities regarding provenance. This must not lead to refusals of restitution per se. It must also be taken into account that in many colonial contexts, legally and/or ethically unjustifiable appropriation was common practice.“
Culture war against „postcolonialism“
The AfD Saxony-Anhalt is directing the full force of its culture war against its imagination of „postcolonialism“:
„Postcolonialism claims that philosophy, literature and indeed the entire European cultural heritage are infected by colonial logic and must therefore be done away with… Postcolonialism is thus ultimately nothing more than a programme for the destruction of European identity. Postcolonialism is not a science, but the politically motivated destruction of science.“ (pp. 71-72)
This is clearly a simplistic, ideologically constructed enemy image that does not engage in any serious examination of the multi-layered meanings of the relevant discourses and their historical contexts.