Eva Umlauf was two years old when she and her mother were liberated from Auschwitz in January 1945. Now living in Munich, the Slovakian-born pediatrician and psychotherapist is watching political developments in Germany with distress as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) secured a victory in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday.
The result leaves a far-right party within reach of power in a German state for the first time since the end of World War Two, a prospect that Umlauf says horrifies her. "What can I say? I expected this, and yet I’m appalled," she told Reuters. "I am appalled, I am saddened; I don’t know what drives people to vote for this party."
Umlauf, who visits schools to educate children about the Holocaust and serves as president of the International Auschwitz Committee, framed her reaction in terms of fear for minorities and foreigners. "We’re afraid. We know what happens - what happens to minorities, what happens to foreigners," she said, reflecting worries widely voiced by minority representatives and civil society groups as opinion polls had signalled gains for the far right across several regions.
Polls cited in recent months indicated the AfD making advances in Saxony-Anhalt and also registering strong support in Berlin and the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, both of which hold votes on September 20. Umlauf highlighted a broader national divide in her remarks, noting that "if you take the whole of Germany into account, you have an average of 30% AfD support. And I believe - and I hope - that this will actually mobilise the other 70%."
The AfD was founded in 2013 as a eurosceptic response to the euro zone crisis. Since then the party has broadened its platform and now advocates restricting immigration - particularly from countries it characterises as "culturally alien" to Germany - leaving the euro and restoring ties with Russia to bring energy prices down. The party rejects comparisons with the Nazi Party and denies being antisemitic, saying its positions reflect common-sense views held by many Germans and that accusations of antisemitism are used by mainstream parties to silence dissent.
Nevertheless, the party has faced repeated accusations of downplaying or relativising Germany's Nazi past. Critics point to a 2018 remark by a party leader describing the Nazi period as "just bird shit in 1,000 years of successful German history." The Central Council of Jews in Germany, the country's main Jewish organisation, has described the AfD as "a party where antisemites and far-right extremists have found a home."
At the regional level, the Saxony-Anhalt branch of the party has been classified as right-wing extremist by the local office of the domestic security agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The AfD rejects that classification as politically motivated.
Sunday's election came at a time of heightened anxiety for many Jewish people in Europe, the article noted, with a sharp rise in antisemitic attacks and incidents since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza. While allegations of antisemitism have been levelled at far-left groups and their supporters as well, the AfD has drawn intensified scrutiny as its support in opinion polls grew.
The AfD's programme for the regional election proposes a "patriotic cultural policy" that would shift school history teaching away from a central focus on the Nazi period toward figures such as the 19th-century statesman Otto von Bismarck. The party also proposes restoring military memorials to German soldiers killed in both world wars. Critics say these priorities signal a desire to retreat from Germany's long-standing effort to confront the crimes of the Nazi era, and that such a reorientation would roll back the country's decades-long engagement with its past.
Umlauf stressed her belief that the party's views are not representative of the entire country. She expressed hope that the apparent surge in support for the AfD will galvanise the majority of Germans who do not share those views, pointing to what she described as a 70% cohort opposed to the party's positions.
The outcome in Saxony-Anhalt has prompted debate across German society about the balance between electoral swings and the preservation of historical memory, the safeguarding of minority rights, and the implications of policy shifts proposed by the AfD in areas including immigration, education and energy policy.