Alternative for Germany Seeks Another Victory in Nordhausen Mayoral Election

First Sonneberg, now Nordhausen? The Alternative for Germany has another chance to elect top municipal offices on Sunday. A 61-year-old entrepreneur entered the race for the town hall of the northern Thuringian industrial and university city. It will be the first nationwide mayoralty of the Alternative for Germany, which is classified as right-wing extremist and monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Thuringia. A few months ago, the AfD had already won the state elections in Sonneberg in southern Thuringia.

Starting point in Nordhausen

AfD candidate Jörg Prophet goes into the runoff election with a good starting position. In the first round of voting on September 10th, he received 42.1% of the vote. He had by far the best score among the other five applicants. He now has to face incumbent independent Kai Buchmann, who achieved 23.7% two weeks ago. The voter turnout was 56.4%. A runoff election was necessary because no candidate reached the 50% threshold.

The AfD is successful in the municipalities

The AfD is listed nationwide for suspected right-wing extremism. This has been the case with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution since the end of June. He not only won the state elections in Thuringia and also won the election as mayor of the small town of Lagun-Jesnitz in Saxony-Anhalt. It began in the southern Thuringian district of Sonneberg, where the lawyer Robert Sesselmann became the first state administrator. In representative surveys, the party achieved approval of more than 30% not only in Thuringia, but also in Saxony and Brandenburg – the three federal states in which state elections will take place in 2024.

Acting MP

Initial situation Incumbent Buchmann is not only having difficulties because of the deficit. The mayoral election was also marked by internal disputes and personal disputes. Buchmann was provisionally suspended in the spring, but has been back in office since August following the administrative court ruling. The SPD state leader raised allegations of bullying. Buchmann was a member of the Green Party and was supported by individual members of the Green Party, the Left Party and the Social Democrats. The political parties have not called on Buchmann to run together. A Social Democrat politician said this approach was tried in Sonneberg, but it actually played into the hands of the Alternative for Germany.

Fear of normalization

In particular, the governing coalition in Thuringia, represented by the Red, Red and Green parties, is concerned about whether the Alternative for Germany will win again in the local elections. Steffen Dittes, chairman of the left-wing faction in the state parliament, spoke of the possibility of a “normalization of right-wing extremist parties”. In the long run, this will remove barriers. In Thuringia, in 2024, in addition to the state parliament, local council members, mayors, district mayors and district administrators will be elected nationwide.

Alternative for Germany Björn Höcke’s party already has influence in the municipalities beyond parliament: in mid-September, the Democratic League, with the help of the FDP and some non-party MPs, decided to move in. The Erfurt state parliament is calling for a reduction in the real estate transfer tax.

Nordhausen’s special history

On the outskirts of the town with around 42,000 inhabitants there is a memorial to the Nazi concentration camp Mittelbau-Dora. Tens of thousands of Europeans were deported there by the Nazis during World War II and many were forced to build weapons in subterranean tunnels under inhumane conditions. The memorial, which says it has received concerned letters from former groups of prisoners, assumes that there were at least 20,000 victims in the camps.