In short
A Guardian “Today in Focus” episode examines whether AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund is “the most dangerous man in Germany,” ahead of Saxony-Anhalt’s state election (2.2 million people). It argues his rise is tied to AfD’s hard-right agenda, social-media charisma, and the “firewall” preventing mainstream parties from governing with AfD.
Guests
John Kampfner, a long-time Germany watcher and author of Why the Germans Do It Better; he became a German citizen about five years ago.
Key claims
Spiegel’s provocative cover (“most dangerous man in Germany”) is said to have delighted Siegmund and boosted his visibility. AfD is portrayed as aiming at “remigration” (wholesale deportations, including legal residents) discussed at a secret Potsdam meeting with neo-Nazi-linked donors. The episode also claims AfD seeks closer ties to Russia, pro-Russian school policies, and state-funded “patriotic” culture while opposing “anti-German” art.
Notable examples
Siegmund’s TikTok following and motorbike campaign symbol; his signing Spiegel covers for followers; chants resembling “Sieg Heil”; his close-circle neo-Nazi youth-group background (press spokesman Patrick Haar).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOUlrich Siegmund: The Controversial Politician
0:08 to 2:14
Overview of Ulrich Siegmund's rise in German politics and his portrayal.
“The German news magazine Spiegel has long had a taste for provocation.”
Introducing John Kampferner
2:14 to 2:30
Introduction of political analyst John Kampferner to discuss the upcoming elections.
“But who is Ulrich Siegmund and how dangerous is he really?”
Sachsen-Anhalt Elections Explained
2:30 to 3:30
Discussion of the significance of the elections in Sachsen-Anhalt.
“So you are a long-time Germany watcher, the author of Why the Germans Do It Better, and I think you're a German citizen of four or five years, is that right?”
Demographics and Challenges in Sachsen-Anhalt
3:30 to 4:24
Exploration of the demographic challenges facing Sachsen-Anhalt.
“It's the oldest population among the 16 Länder, the 16 regions of Germany.”
History and Identity of Sachsen-Anhalt
4:24 to 5:12
Discussion on the historical significance and identity of Sachsen-Anhalt.
“But I guess there's a lot of proud local history there, isn't there?”
AFD's Political Landscape
5:12 to 6:06
Analysis of the AFD's position and potential success in the elections.
“Well, the AFD was established in the early 2010s, mainly actually as a Eurosceptic party.”
Ulrich Siegmund's Background and Appeal
6:06 to 8:15
Insights into Siegmund's background and his appeal to voters.
“And not only forming a government, but forming a government on its own, such as the size of its majority.”
AFD's Policies and Controversies
8:15 to 11:40
Examination of the AFD's controversial policies and their implications.
“otherwise called Ostalgie, a nostalgia for the East.”
Siegmund's Response and Public Perception
11:40 to 14:00
Discussion on Siegmund's public image and his reaction to controversies.
“And across the piece, they are espousing policies that very few mainstream people in Germany thought would ever return.”
Ulrich Siegmund: The Most Dangerous Man in Germany?
14:00 to 18:14
Exploring Ulrich Siegmund's controversial image and his impact on German politics.
“The magazine der Spiegel even put a front page out calling him the most dangerous man in Germany.”
Show all 12 chapters
The AFD's Rise and Electoral Strategy
19:30 to 28:10
Analyzing the AFD's polling numbers and potential strategies for upcoming elections.
“Find Barclays Brief wherever you get your podcasts.”
Discussion Wrap-Up with John Kampfner
28:10 to 28:31
A conclusion of the discussion with insights from John Kampfner.
“His new book, Braver New World, is out now.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Ulrich Siegmund:This is The Guardian.
0:08John Kampfner:Today, is Ulrich Siegmund really the most dangerous man in Germany?
0:24John Kampfner:The German news magazine Spiegel has long had a taste for provocation. But one of their cover stories last month really made headlines. It carried a picture of a young East German politician called Ulrich Siegmund. He looked pretty good, his chin covered with designer stubble, his hair combed into a neat quiff, his green eyes staring right into the camera. Under the headline, der gefährlichste Mann Deutschlands. Der Spiegel setzt den AfD Spitzenkandidaten Ulrich Siegmund auf den Titel und nennt ihn den gefährlichsten Mann Deutschlands. the most dangerous man in Germany. Now, you might think that Sigmund would hate that Spiegel cover.
1:06John Kampfner:Far from it.
1:07Ulrich Siegmund:There's a Rüchseement, and look what he's signing. Copies of the Spiegel front cover. The front cover that described him as the most dangerous man in Germany. And a lot of people in this queue have that magazine.
1:21John Kampfner:On the campaign trail in recent weeks, he has been autographing copies. He even filmed himself signing one for his 800 ,000 TikTok followers.
1:39John Kampfner:If the polls are correct, Sigmund could soon become the first far-right leader of a German state since Adolf Hitler's time. Support for his AFD party in his home state of Saxony Anheil has reached 42%, almost double the tally of the CDU, the party Friedrich Merz, Germany's beleaguered chancellor. This Sunday's state elections could be one of the most important in post-war Germany. If the AFD wins in Saxony Anheil, other eastern states could follow later this month, raising fears that the party could ultimately win in the federal elections too. But who is Ulrich Siegmund and how dangerous is he really?
2:19John Kampfner:From The Guardian, I'm Helen Pitt. Today in Focus, the AFD's TikTok star.
2:29John Kampfner:John Kampferner, welcome back to Today in Focus. Great to see you.
2:32Ulrich Siegmund:Great to be back.
2:33John Kampfner:So you are a long-time Germany watcher, the author of Why the Germans Do It Better, and I think you're a German citizen of four or five years, is that right? I am.
2:42Ulrich Siegmund:This month, September, will be five years.
2:45John Kampfner:Well, herzlichen Glückwunsch on your German citizenship. Let's just start by talking about this vote on Sunday. Who is voting? Where are they? And why does it matter?
2:55Ulrich Siegmund:It is the citizens of Sachsen-Anhalt, Sachsen-Anhalt in German, which is a small state in what used to be the GDR, the communist east. It has 2.2 million people. it's a bit of an artificial state in or land as the germans call them in the sense that it was only created after the second world war when the gdr came into being and in some senses people feel that that lack of identity is adding to the many much bigger questions that will result from what is expected to be a seismic result on sunday and what are the demographics like in saxony and hud It's the oldest population among the 16 Länder, the 16 regions of Germany.
3:41Ulrich Siegmund:It has a gender imbalance, more men than women. Basically, what happened after unification, and I'm generalizing, but the trend is fairly clear on this, is that young, ambitious women moved to the West and leaving behind late middle-aged people who were losing their jobs when industries were closed and privatized. elderly people and angry young men. And this cocktail of resentment, which is across the East, is particularly strong in this area, where unemployment is higher than national average per capital. Income is lower than the average. So pretty much not much is going right there.
4:24John Kampfner:But I guess there's a lot of proud local history there, isn't there? Some of the sons of Saxony Anhard, very famous, Handel, the composer Otto von Bismarck, Nietzsche, the first
4:35Ulrich Siegmund:Martin Luther hung the 95 Theses that was instrumental in the establishment of the Protestant Church. So no, it is a beautiful place. It's right on the Hartz Mountains, a beautiful mountain range that used to divide in the Cold War, West and East Germany.
4:56John Kampfner:and we've talked on this show quite a bit before about the rise of alternativa for deutschland the alternative for germany and their leader alice weidel she of course led the party to second place in the 2025 federal election winning 25 of the vote but can you just briefly explain we will talk about this more later why this election why this vote in this one small state of just 2 million odd people. Why is it potentially so significant?
5:20Ulrich Siegmund:Well, the AFD was established in the early 2010s, mainly actually as a Eurosceptic party. And the AFD has sort of ebbed and flowed. But really, in the last few years, its influence, particularly in the East, but not exclusively in the East, has grown. Now, these elections almost certainly will see, will definitely will see the AFD as the largest party. Now, nationally, it's polling as the top party at the moment, but only by a narrow margin over Friedrich Merz's centre-right Christian Democrats, not too different from the British Conservative Party. But in this election, it has a good chance, I would put it as a 50-50 chance, of actually forming a government.
6:06Ulrich Siegmund:And not only forming a government, but forming a government on its own, such as the size of its majority. something that's almost unheard of in Germany. In fact, something that the German constitution tries its level best to prevent.
6:18John Kampfner:Yeah, because the German elections use an element of proportional representation, don't they? Which means that you almost always end up with coalitions. But as you say, this time the AfD might just win outright, thanks in no small part to its Spitzenkandidat, its lead candidates, this very intriguing character called Ulrich Siegmund, who has a decent chance of becoming the state's minister-president or premier.
6:55John Kampfner:He's only 35, so he was born just a couple of weeks after the German reunification. Just tell me a bit about his upbringing.
7:02Ulrich Siegmund:His parents were sort of regular GDR workers. He started a fragrance company. In fact, he went around German big cities, including Berlin, trying to persuade the transport firms that if they infused the carriages with some of his fragrance, somehow the mood among passengers would improve. He didn't get any contracts for that. He joined the mainstream CDU, the Conservatives. And then, like so many, he saw his opportunity in the AFD.
7:47Ulrich Siegmund:And he is now regarded potentially as a national leader of that party. He's got sort of slick-backed hair. He drives these former GDR motorbikes.
8:10Ulrich Siegmund:that East Germans hold on to the symbols of their nostalgia, otherwise called Ostalgie, a nostalgia for the East.
8:29Ulrich Siegmund:And this motorbike is the key symbol of his election campaign.
8:41Ulrich Siegmund:And he's got a huge TikTok following, by far the largest of any politician in Germany. He knows how to play social media incredibly well.
9:06John Kampfner:Yeah, and we're going to come on to talk about why he's perceived by some, including Der Spiegel, as so dangerous. But tell me first, what is he and the AFD actually promising to the people of Saxony-Anhard?
9:18Ulrich Siegmund:A few months ago, they published their program for Germany, and pretty much, I mean, all political parties are coalitions of sorts. You could say that with Restore, with Marine Le Pen's RN in France, even with Donald Trump's Republicans. And so with the AFD as well, there are some figures who you might regard as sort of, I don't know, these labels are fairly redundant nowadays, but sort of alt-right, ultra-right, but not extreme neo-Nazi right. And the German domestic intelligence has labelled the AFD in this region, Saxony-Anhalt, and in neighbouring Turingia as extreme. That label was then suspended by a court.
10:03Ulrich Siegmund:But they are extreme. They are talking about remigration, which was a term that was uncovered when there was a semi-secret meeting.
10:14John Kampfner:In November, AFD leaders secretly met in a hotel with donors and members of neo-Nazi movements to discuss what they called re-migration.
10:23Ulrich Siegmund:And that is basically wholesale deportations of people, including people with citizenship, who have come to Germany entirely legally and by regular routes. This shows that even high-ranking AFD politicians have expressed radical right-wing positions in a closed room. They are very pro-Moscow, pro-the Kremlin. They regard the one million or so Ukrainians in Germany who have fled as a sort of benefit-scroungers rather than war-refugees, wants to reintroduce the teaching of Russian as a priority in German schools, have school exchanges to Russia, etc. On the cultural front, they want to, in an echo of the Nazi era, when they banned or labelled what was called degenerate art, they want to fund only patriotic arts organisations.
11:24Ulrich Siegmund:Anti-German art is German art that doesn't want to be German. If it denigrates Germany, portrays Germany disparagingly, as is unfortunately the norm among many left-wing cultural figures, then it's not art that should be promoted according to our standards. It's that simple. And across the piece, they are espousing policies that very few mainstream people in Germany thought would ever return.
11:53John Kampfner:And you mentioned that secret meeting in Potsdam where the idea of re-migration was first put on the table. I really remember hearing about that at the time a couple of years ago, thinking, oh my God. And now re-migration is on the agenda for many political parties, notably Restore in Britain. But at that secret meeting was Ulrich Siegmund, which is arguably one of the reasons why der Spiegel put on its cover line that he is the most dangerous person in Germany. What else has he done or said to warrant that epithet? An epithet which he seems to rather revel in.
12:31Ulrich Siegmund:Well, yeah, I mean, as I say, he said every policy position of the AFD nationally, he takes and then takes it further in that direction. In the regions, governments have only particular powers, but one is in education and culture. And you know exactly what he is seeking to do in this regard, which is to sort of restore its sort of Putin-style nationalism. And one of the issues that the central government has, if they take power, then the regions, which are represented in the upper chamber of the German parliament in Berlin called the Bundesrat, they are given various access to intelligence and other important crime and domestic security questions and they're now trying to work out how on earth they can have informal meetings of all the other states minus Saxony-Anhalt which I'm sure will be challenged in the court.
13:34Ulrich Siegmund:So not just in this regional level and it's a small region but nationally the repercussions of this will be huge.
13:41John Kampfner:So they are a party which wants such close ties with Russia that it's scaring the German intelligence agencies. God.
13:48Ulrich Siegmund:And as for the Spiegel cover, I mean, Spiegel has this way of producing covers that are talked about. Now, whether they're talked about well or badly is moot. However, it's cover he absolutely adored. The magazine der Spiegel even put a front page out calling him the most dangerous man in Germany. What does he have to say? Perhaps they're trying to sell more copies of their magazine. I don't know. Or are they really so far removed from the people that they think they can pretend terrorists or rapists aren't dangerous? But I, as a 35-year-old man, am. I'm simply fighting with a great team for a better Germany.
14:28Ulrich Siegmund:I love this country and want to change it democratically from head to toe. And a bit like Trump and a bit like others, the far right define themselves by the hostility or the anxiety that they engender in the mainstream. They regard that as tick success. And so then to be called, without even a question mark, the most dangerous man in Germany, he loved it. He then, he got all his people to buy as many copies. I'm sure the circulation of that particular issue was huge, largely because of AFD members buying them so they could turn up at all the different town hall meetings and places he was turning up with to on his motorbike so that he could sign them with a sharpie pen and now apparently on ebay and elsewhere copies of spiegel that particular issue signed by him are going for
15:21John Kampfner:quite high value yeah and there's a pretty live debate going on in the media in germany at the moment on the wisdom of that spiegel cover and whether it has ultimately helped siegmund but it It is certainly true, isn't it, that Siegmund seems pretty relaxed, shall we say, about Germany's Nazi past. He did once call Hitler's rule a low point in German history, but then when he was asked whether the Holocaust had shown the worst of mankind, he answered, I don't presume to judge that because I can't process the whole of mankind. And then there's the chance that his supporters shout at his rallies.
Read the full transcript
15:54John Kampfner:It's this kind of call and response thing, isn't it, where people go Sieg, and then other people go, Mond, Sieg, Mond. And you don't have to have great German to hear echoes in that of the Nazi slogan, Sieg Heil. And it's something you've also seen with the AFD's leader, Alice Weidel, and her chant, Alice für Deutschland, Alice, Alice, which sounds remarkably like Alice für Deutschland, a Nazi slogan.
16:17Ulrich Siegmund:Absolutely. And it's deliberate ambiguity.
16:20John Kampfner:Yeah.
16:20Ulrich Siegmund:And so he always, he's got a stop response to that kind of thing as, well, I believe in freedom of expression. I can't stop people chanting whatever they want to chant and that sort of thing with a twinkle in his eye. But at every stage, through social media, but also physical presence, being incredibly charismatic, replete with very carefully chosen symbols, sometimes slipping and sliding away from it and denying that they are going in that direction for particular tactical reasons while encouraging it as well.
16:58John Kampfner:Yeah, and he's very relaxed, it seems, about the company he keeps. There are a couple of people in his very close circle who were literally in neo-Nazi youth groups, including press spokesman Patrick Haar. He worked for the national leadership of the Heimat-Treuer-Deutsche-Jugend. This was an organisation who, at the time, only 20 years ago, wanted their children to be national socialist freedom fighters. They painted their faces with swastikas.
17:25Ulrich Siegmund:I mean, there have always been neo-Nazis at every stage, even since, you know, from the mid-late 1940s onwards. But they were fairly containable by the police, by domestic intelligence, whatever, because for a start, they may have been violent and they may have been loud, but they weren't that sophisticated in their political strategizing. But also they were small. And this is very different.
17:54John Kampfner:Coming up. Could the AFD ultimately win in the West, and even in a general election?
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19:38John Kampfner:And you told us at the start of our conversation that the AFD will almost certainly be by far and away the largest party in Sunday's elections in Saxony and Hutt. But it's not guaranteed that they will be able to form a government. Can you just explain to us why that is so?
19:56Ulrich Siegmund:Right. So this is where we get into arithmetical nerdy-ville. So listeners and viewers will just have to bear with me on this. When I said almost certainly, I think I was understating. It is certain. It is definite. And German opinion pollsters are generally very accurate. The AFD is polling either side of, at the moment, above 40%. The CDU, Matt's Conservatives, are hovering just a little bit over at 20%. The left party, a sort of somewhere between Jeremy Corbyn, the British Greens, are around 11%. And then remarkably, the Social Democrats and the Greens, two parties that were instrumental in the last coalition government, are struggling to get over the 5 % hurdle, which allows representation.
20:47Ulrich Siegmund:And that hurdle, as I said earlier, was designed to keep extremists out. And now it's keeping mainstream parties out. So those are the numbers. Now, if the two parties, the Social Democrats and the Greens, fail to get in, and other parties that fail to get in, their votes are basically abolished. and then you divvy up the remaining votes of any party that gets over 5 % and you divvy up the seats. According to that arithmetic, the AFD is almost certain to either get 50 % of the seats or as close to 50 % where it can govern.
21:25John Kampfner:OK, but what if they don't quite get a majority? What happens then?
21:29Ulrich Siegmund:Against that, if the Social Democrats and the Greens and their votes have been inching up a little bit, according to the polls in recent days, do get over that 5%, and the numbers fall in a particular way, then you could get the following government of the Conservatives in the lead, in coalition with the Social Democrats and the Greens, so far so well.
21:53John Kampfner:Yeah.
21:54Ulrich Siegmund:Even then, they would need some tacit support of the far left party to get legislation through. You know, and what would they possibly agree? Added to that, you've got the question, which brings us to this firewall, the question of what exactly do people mean by democracy?
22:13John Kampfner:And the firewall is basically an agreement between the mainstream parties, whereby they've all decided that they won't work with the AFD at any level. And that means that they basically will cobble together whatever coalitions they can to keep the AFD out of government, which some would say is an increasingly indefensible position given the numbers.
22:33Ulrich Siegmund:Yeah. If a party gets more than double or around double or even a little bit less than double the support of the next party and is denied the opportunity of governing and everybody else cobbles together just about enough to push this boulder over the line, then you ask yourselves, well, you know, this is taking democratic norms.
22:55John Kampfner:Yeah, it feels like an establishment stitch up to use the language of the right.
23:01Ulrich Siegmund:Defenders say needs must. We're in a 1933 situation. And the purists in this say, actually, we'll do whatever it takes to keep them out. But given that the AFD are now polling so well, is that a sign that the firewall has failed, do you think? Again, it depends who you ask. And I'm really torn about it. I'm really not sure what I think. I mean, the AFD are absolutely prominent in the Bundestag, you know, and they are setting the agenda. And there are certain parts of the media, the Springer Group and the newspapers and podcasts.
23:39John Kampfner:That have just bought the Telegraph, yes.
23:40Ulrich Siegmund:That have just bought the Telegraph, who are being quite, how can I put it, ambiguous about the AFD while being adamant that they are sticking to the norms of post-war Germany. If you think of Elon Musk worth just shy of a trillion dollars, and you just need a couple of decimal points of 1%, and that would get these parties a lot of money and a lot of influence, not just in Germany, but all over the world. Well, first of all, I wanted to really say that I'm very excited for the IFD.
24:17John Kampfner:Yeah, and let's not forget that Musk appeared via video link to chat to Alice Weidel during the federal election campaign last year. and urge Germans to vote AFD.
24:26Ulrich Siegmund:The thing I think that is just very important is that people take pride in Germany and being German. This is very important.
24:34John Kampfner:Let's talk about what could happen after these elections on Sunday. So there's other elections in the east, I think, in Berlin and up in the north. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where the AFD are expected to do quite well. Quite surprising to many people, I think, if they do well in Berlin. But are the AFD just an East German phenomenon? or are they getting enough support in the West, which could mean that realistically they could challenge at the federal level in the elections in 2029?
25:01Ulrich Siegmund:The national opinion polls at the moment have the AFD on the top. You know, they are no bit part players anywhere. They have higher, quite considerably higher poll ratings in the East. But, you know, when they used to be single figures in the West, they're running at, depending on which region, they're running at 20, 25%. not the 40 % of Saxony-Anhalter, around 35 % in other eastern states, but still. So they're a huge player. And that's a reflection of German politics, but more, I would contend, a reflection of global politics as well. And they are influencing. I mean, whether you agree with it or not, immigration policy in Germany has sharpened hugely.
25:48Ulrich Siegmund:Numbers are way down on what they were, Not that the Mao's government is getting any credit. But I mean, Germany is even deporting or sending back irregular migrants to Afghanistan, which Britain is not yet doing. So a lot of these areas, policy has already been tightened up, and that is the AFD influence in action.
26:09John Kampfner:And why do you think that the AFD are now proving so attractive to voters? And why their policies are not anything like as toxic as they would have been, I don't know, four or five years ago?
26:19Ulrich Siegmund:Well, this allows me to plug my book, Brave A New World, which is basically arguing that liberal democracy is in the last chance saloon. There's been so much analysed about the rise of the far right and on occasion the far left as well and democratic backsliding. But to me, it has been an absolute failure of confidence and courage in mainstream politics and by mainstream politicians. Whether you think of the previous British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, everything was politics of increment, politics of doing not very much slowly. And you juxtapose that with these simple, dynamic and, dare I use the word, sexy messages of the extremes.
27:14Ulrich Siegmund:We're just going to do this. We're just going to kick all the migrants out. We're just going to improve school standards by getting rid of woke and all this sort of stuff. And that is exactly among mainstream parties in Germany now. Now, instead of producing that sort of sense of national, not quite emergency, that would trigger yet more sense of latent panic, but a sense of national solidarity, not just to stave off the AFD in some somewhat dirty political stitch up, But actually to address those parts of the concerns of its voters that are legitimate, which are living standards and a sense of being listened to and a sense of politicians enacting serious change.
27:58Ulrich Siegmund:But if they continue to argue, as this coalition is currently doing, as happened in the late 1920s and into the 1930s, then we could be entering a very dark place.
28:09John Kampfner:John, let's leave it there. Thank you very much.
28:12Ulrich Siegmund:Nice to be here.
28:14John Kampfner:That was John Kampfner. His new book, Braver New World, is out now. He's also written on all of this for The Guardian's opinion pages. You can find his latest column at theguardian.com, which is also, of course, where you will find extensive coverage of this Sunday's elections too. And that is all for today. This episode was produced by Tom Glasser and presented by me, Helen Pidd. Sound design was by Brian McNamara and the executive producer was Huma Khalili. We will be back in your feeds this afternoon with the latest.
29:03John Kampfner:This is The Guardian.
