AfD on culture and media

The AfD wants Germany's international broadcasters, the Goethe-Institut network and cultural projects to convey a positive image of Germany and promote its cultural heritage. One priority is to be support for German minorities abroad. In EU institutions, German is to be put on a truly equal footing with the working languages English and French.

The AfD wants to promote German culture abroad. German broadcasters and Goethe institutes should show a good picture of Germany. German minorities in other countries should get help. In the EU, German should matter as much as English and French.

According to the platform, foreign cultural policy should build ties to other peoples, spread knowledge of German culture and history, and support business and tourism through international contacts. The AfD affirms a duty of care toward German minorities abroad and wants to help them keep their language and culture. It also demands compliance with the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

The AfD sets a German Leitkultur (guiding culture) against the concept of multiculturalism. In its view, this guiding culture is the basis for social cohesion and a functioning state. Customs, dialects and historic townscapes are to be cultivated and preserved.

The AfD wants a German guiding culture. This means German culture should be the standard for everyone. The AfD says this holds society together. Customs and dialects should be kept alive. Old town centers should stay beautiful.

According to the platform, language, values, history and culture shape German identity, with Christianity, classical antiquity, the Enlightenment and folk traditions named as its roots. Constitutional patriotism alone is not a sufficient basis for the AfD. It calls for an intellectual and cultural renewal in all areas. Customs and dialects are to be cultivated, with the help of local cultural associations. Historic town centers are to be preserved and, where needed, restored through reconstruction. The party welcomes ethnic German resettlers from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

The AfD wants official remembrance culture to honor German history as a whole and not only its dark chapters. It rejects removing monuments, renaming streets and a "decolonization" of culture. For victims of communism it calls for a memorial and higher benefits.

The AfD wants to remember history in a different way. The state should also show the good times. Monuments should stay. Streets should keep their names. There should be a memorial for the victims of communism. The pension for victims of the East German regime should go up.

The platform opposes what the AfD sees as an ideological reinterpretation of history and objects to portraying Prussia and the German Empire as forerunners of National Socialism. The party rejects the debate on "decolonization" and "critical race theory," as well as a blanket return of collection items from colonial contexts. The Bundestag resolution for a memorial and information center for the victims of communist rule is to be carried out. The SED-Opferrente (pension for victims of the East German regime) is to rise significantly, and health damage caused by persecution is to be recognized more easily. The suffering of Germans expelled from their homelands is also to be remembered. Memorial sites are to be adequately funded by the federal and state governments and remain politically independent.

The AfD wants to write German into the constitution as the state and official language. Gender-inclusive language is to be banned in government offices and public institutions. The party justifies this with the importance of language for unity and with what it sees as ideology-free communication.

The AfD wants to write German into the Basic Law. The Basic Law is Germany's constitution. German should be named there as the language of the state. Public offices should no longer use gender-inclusive language. That is a way of writing that names all genders.

The platform calls protecting and cultivating the German language a special concern. Anchoring it in the constitution is meant to express the role of the language in the unity of Germans. Recognized minority languages are to keep their equal status. The AfD describes gender-inclusive language as ideological and wants to prohibit its use in public institutions and government bodies.

The AfD wants to remove political content requirements from public culture and film funding and to limit the federal government's cultural policy. Funded organizations are to commit to the free democratic basic order. Freelance artists, musicians and teachers are to pay no value-added tax up to an income threshold.

The AfD wants to change how culture is funded. The state should not tell artists which political topics to cover. This also applies to films. Groups that get state money should commit to democracy. Artists with low incomes should pay no value-added tax.

In film funding, the AfD rejects requirements meant to embed topics such as gender, climate protection or diversity in films; producers should be able to follow market and audience interests. The party affirms the states' authority over culture and wants to restrict federal activity in cultural policy. Publicly funded projects, associations and foundations must declare their commitment to the free democratic basic order. Artistic and teaching work in the cultural sector is to be exempt from value-added tax up to an income threshold, because the platform says the tax obligation pushes those affected into illegal employment. Social insurance, for example through the Künstlersozialkasse (artists' social insurance fund), is to be available in every case.

The AfD wants to fundamentally restructure and shrink public broadcasting. It is to provide only a basic service of information, culture and regional content, and without fees. The party considers public broadcasting in its current form too expensive and politically one-sided.

The AfD wants to change public broadcasting a lot. These are stations like ARD and ZDF. They should become much smaller. They should only offer news, culture and regional programs. People should no longer pay a fee for them.

The platform calls the model "Grundfunk" (basic broadcasting) and contrasts it with the current broadcasting fee, which it describes as a compulsory levy. It points to around 9 billion euros in fee revenue plus advertising and calls German public broadcasting the most expensive in the world. In the AfD's view, the broadcasters are closely tied to the established parties and engage in opinion-shaping. They are therefore to be reformed, slimmed down and, in the platform's words, de-ideologized.