AfD on culture and media

The AfD wants to end what it regards as one-sided political influence. It names schools, state-funded programs worth millions, and the fee-financed public broadcasters.

The AfD says schools influence children politically in a one-sided way. It says the same about costly state programs. And about the public broadcasters that everyone pays fees for. The AfD wants to stop this.

According to the party, citizens are steered politically in one direction at schools, through state funding programs, and by public broadcasting. The platform calls the broadcasting fee a compulsory charge. The AfD also criticizes that adults are being patronized while schools give children too little education. Schools are to focus again on conveying knowledge.

The AfD wants to give the state's cultural policy a patriotic direction and replace the state campaign "moderndenken" (think modern) with a campaign called "deutschdenken" (think German). In the party's view, the goal is a new national self-confidence, which it also sees as a precondition for integration.

The AfD wants a patriotic cultural policy. Patriotic means being proud of your own country. A new campaign should show German history in Saxony-Anhalt. This should make Germans more self-confident.

The platform criticizes the current image campaign for deriving the state's identity from the Bauhaus. The new campaign would instead highlight figures such as Henry I, Otto I, Luther, Bismarck and Nietzsche, as well as the Merseburg Charms. It would involve schools, patriotic tourism concepts, prizes and commemorative events. The AfD traces the policies it objects to back to what it sees as an entrenched guilt complex and a lack of national pride. Saxony-Anhalt is meant to become a cultural policy model for other states.

The AfD wants to end the state's annual grant to the Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste (German Lost Art Foundation) in Magdeburg entirely. It rejects checking museum holdings for unlawful acquisitions without a specific reason and sees this as keeping a sense of guilt alive.

The AfD wants to stop state money for a center in Magdeburg. The center checks whether museums got objects unlawfully. The AfD is against such checks without a specific reason. It says they only keep a feeling of guilt alive.

According to the platform, the grant is 73,500 euros a year. The center examines acquisitions from the colonial era, the Nazi era, and the Soviet occupation zone and East Germany. The AfD objects that research takes place even when no former owner or heir asks for restitution. Where injured parties come forward, the platform says wrongs should still be put right. The party considers colonial guilt to be a construct.

The AfD wants to appoint a state commissioner responsible for preserving memorials to fallen soldiers. It says many of these memorials are in poor condition, and it sees their upkeep as a sign of a patriotic turn.

The AfD wants a commissioner for war memorials. These are monuments for soldiers who died in war. The commissioner should make sure they are kept in good shape. The AfD wants to honor the dead soldiers this way.

The commissioner would list all memorials in the state and record where restoration is needed. Together with the heritage protection authorities, the commissioner would get municipalities to carry out preservation work. Where necessary, the state would contribute funding. All memorials would be supported equally, without political judgment, covering both world wars as well as the wars of 1866 and 1870/71.

The AfD wants to write into the state building code that public buildings owned by the state or municipalities must draw on a recognized building tradition. The platform considers many public buildings erected since 1990 ugly and expensive. In the party's view, public buildings should appeal to the majority and reflect historical identity.

The AfD wants new rules for public buildings. These buildings should be built in a traditional style. The party thinks many newer buildings are ugly. Most people should find public buildings beautiful.

The state building code (BauO LSA) would get an added guideline. It would apply to buildings with a public purpose that are owned by the state or a municipality. Designs with no link to tradition are to be avoided, and durable regional materials are to be preferred. The platform cites the so-called "Sinuskurve" and the Nord-LB building in Magdeburg as negative examples. It names an executive order issued by Donald Trump during his first term as its model.

The AfD wants public money for arts and culture to go mainly to works that, in its view, contribute to German identity. The platform sees cultivating cultural identity as the foremost task of art. It argues that artistic freedom does not create an entitlement to funding.

The AfD wants to change arts funding. State money should mostly go to art that strengthens German identity. Other art stays allowed. But it should get less state money.

The platform complains that theaters in the state hardly stage German plays anymore, neither classics such as Goethe, Schiller, and Kleist nor more recent authors such as Botho Strauss. Instead, it says, they offer shallow entertainment or internationally oriented work. Under the Basic Law, such art has to be tolerated but not financed, the platform argues. The chapter heading calls for promoting patriotism and spending no state money on art it describes as anti-German.

The AfD wants the state to give localities five euros per resident each year for customs and tradition. The aim is to strengthen attachment to the home region and national identity.

The AfD wants to keep customs and traditions alive in villages. Each locality should get money from the state for this. It is five euros per resident each year. The local council decides how to use the money.

The money would be paid as an unrestricted formula grant, meaning a lump-sum payment from the state. The local council (Ortschaftsrat) votes on how exactly it is used within the broad field of customs and tradition. The platform contrasts this funding with the existing State Agency for Civic Education, which it rejects.

The AfD wants to oppose bans on private New Year's Eve fireworks at every level, from municipalities to the federal government. The platform regards fireworks as a centuries-old tradition and a ban as an undue restriction on citizens' freedom.

The AfD is against a ban on fireworks. For the party, firecrackers and rockets belong to New Year's Eve. It sees them as an old tradition. Everyone should be allowed to set off fireworks privately on New Year's Eve.

The platform describes firecrackers and rockets as a fixed part of ringing in the new year and as part of culture. In the party's view, a ban would end this tradition and curtail freedoms. An AfD state government would therefore campaign against such bans at every political level.

The AfD wants to turn the state's annual payments to the two major churches into general funding for all Christian churches. The money would be distributed by membership, with the total amount unchanged.

The state pays money to the two big churches every year. The AfD wants to share this money among all Christian churches. A church with more members gets more. The total sum stays the same.

According to the platform, Saxony-Anhalt pays the major churches more than 40 million euros a year as compensation for church property expropriated in 1803. The AfD considers the original reason to have lapsed and sees the payments as de facto general church funding. After a reform, the money could only be used for clergy and the upkeep of buildings. Churches that want funding would have to account for its use and disclose their entire budget.

The AfD wants to immediately end state funding for the Evangelische Akademie Sachsen-Anhalt (Protestant Academy). It argues that, in the platform's view, the academy mostly offers political content rather than church-related education.

The Protestant Academy gets money from the state. The AfD wants to stop this payment right away. The party says the academy mostly does politics. It says there is too little teaching about church and faith.

According to the platform, the Evangelische Akademie Sachsen-Anhalt e. V. receives 70,000 euros a year from the state. The AfD would consider that defensible at most if the work were about theology or church music. The platform accuses the academy of mainly spreading other parties' positions on climate, gender, diversity and immigration, and of portraying dissenters as a danger to democracy.

The AfD wants to use a state government to push for an obligation of political neutrality and balance for public broadcasting and for radio stations that receive public money. In the platform's view, critical voices are sidelined in the media and freedom of expression is being narrowed there.

The AfD wants neutral broadcasters. This should apply to public broadcasting. It should also apply to radio stations that get public money. The AfD says many opinions are missing there today.

The platform calls freedom of opinion and speech the foundation of a free society. It complains that critics are not invited and that uncomfortable views are portrayed as fringe positions. The AfD wants media to show the full range of political and cultural views and to report factually. As guidelines for its media policy the party names less state, leaner structures and representation of all political currents.

The AfD wants to call on the state media authority to stop subsidizing Radio Corax, a station in Halle, and to have all so-called Freie Radios (non-commercial community radio stations) reviewed. The platform accuses the station of giving a stage to left-wing positions, gender topics and Antifa content while shutting out dissenting views.

Radio Corax is a radio station in Halle. It gets public money. The AfD wants this money to stop. It says the station is too left-wing and keeps out other opinions. All other community radio stations should be checked too.

According to the platform, Radio Corax received 968,438.61 euros from the Saxony-Anhalt media authority alone between 2019 and 2023. Further money is said to come from the city of Halle, the student body of the University of Halle-Wittenberg and the state youth office. The AfD argues that community radios are not open to everyone but shield themselves from differing opinions. In the party's view, the conditions for their license therefore no longer apply.

The AfD wants to terminate the interstate broadcasting treaties as its first act in government after the election. This is meant to create pressure for reform, because in the platform's view public broadcasting does not renew itself.

The German states have treaties about public broadcasting. The AfD wants to cancel these treaties right away. This should force reforms. The AfD says public broadcasting will not change by itself.

In the AfD's view the treaties stand for rigid structures, bureaucracy and paternalism. The platform accuses public broadcasting of protecting an outdated system of broadcasting councils, posts and mandatory fees. The party names as its goal a modern, transparent media system that is again limited to basic provision.

The AfD wants to abolish the broadcasting fee and shrink public broadcasting to a basic service. It argues that every household has to pay regardless of income or actual use, which weighs especially on low earners.

Today every home pays a broadcasting fee. The AfD wants to end this fee. Public broadcasting should only offer a small basic service. People could then pay extra for sports or entertainment if they want.

The platform cites the fee of 18.36 euros per home per month, or 220.32 euros a year. On top of the basic service, voluntary subscriptions would be possible, for example for sports or entertainment. The AfD wants to examine whether the basic service is paid for from the public budget or through advertising. The party describes public broadcasting as not politically neutral.

The AfD wants the regional public broadcaster Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) to decide on its own locations in order to work more efficiently. In addition, pension contracts in public broadcasting are to be reviewed, and media supervisory bodies are to be staffed independently of parties and on the basis of expertise.

The MDR is a public broadcaster. It should decide by itself where it works. The AfD also wants to check pension contracts in public broadcasting. If they are too high, it wants to cut them. Experts should sit on the oversight boards, not party people.

The platform considers the location rules, which are more than thirty years old, to be outdated and criticizes spending on real estate, duplicate structures and administration. Pension contracts are to be checked for legality and for whether they violate public morals; where unlawful excessive provision is found, the AfD wants to cut or cancel payments. For supervisory boards the party demands transparent appointment procedures and clear succession rules. It complains that active and former politicians help decide on programming, staff and budgets there.

The AfD wants to keep the Medienanstalt Sachsen-Anhalt (state media authority) as a supervisory body but shrink it and limit it to core tasks. In the long run it is to be paid for from the state budget instead of the broadcasting fee, and the party wants its bodies to be less shaped by party politics.

The state media authority oversees private media in the state. The AfD wants to keep it but make it smaller. It should only do its most important tasks. Later the state should pay for it, not the broadcasting fee. Parties should have less influence there.

As core tasks the platform names safeguarding diversity of opinion, legal oversight of media and protecting citizens from violations of the law. Side projects and funding and programming activities that the AfD regards as ideologically driven are to be reviewed and ended where appropriate. Spending and staffing are to follow actual need and be checked regularly. For the bodies and leadership the party wants to examine stronger professional qualifications and clear incompatibility rules.