State and federal parliamentarians from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Brandenburg and Thuringia recently held carefully arranged events with Austrian far‑right activist Martin Sellner — a panel debate in Brandenburg and a discussion in the Thuringian state parliament. Both the Brandenburg and Thuringia AfD branches have been classified by German federal security authorities as right‑wing extremist.
The meetings centered on mass deportations, a policy area where Sellner and parts of the AfD overlap. Sellner has publicly proposed stripping migrants of German citizenship as part of a wider agenda of ethnic‑nationalist ‘remigration.’ In mid‑January, Brandenburg AfD lawmaker Lena Kotre vowed that if the AfD came to power in the state, “people will be deported until the runway glows hot.”
The encounters come as the AfD campaigns to join state governments in Saxony‑Anhalt and Mecklenburg‑Western Pomerania in regional elections this year, intensifying internal and external political maneuvering.
Political consultant Johannes Hillje says Sellner’s outreach serves more than an electoral audience. Such meetings, Hillje argues, are aimed inward as much as outward: they are moves in an intra‑party power struggle between the more radical eastern state branches and the comparatively moderate federal AfD leadership. While federal leaders have sought a more restrained public image, eastern regional associations have trended toward radical positions — and Sellner represents that radical pole. For years he has been one of Europe’s better‑known right‑wing extremists, advocating the expulsion of Muslims and non‑white people and opposing migration and diversity.
Sellner’s political history includes early ties to Austria’s neo‑Nazi scene and association with Holocaust denier Gottfried Küssel. He later rose to prominence in the Identitarian Movement, which mobilizes against migration and Islam; under his leadership the group became so extreme that the AfD placed it on an “incompatibility list,” barring simultaneous membership. Still, informal contacts between Sellner and AfD figures have continued.
A secretive December 2023 meeting in Potsdam in which “remigration” and mass deportations were discussed provoked weeks of nationwide protests — among the largest public demonstrations in Germany since World War II — with millions rallying against the AfD and its alleged plans to expel immigrants. The episode also revived calls to examine whether the party should be legally banned for violating democratic norms, though no federal bodies have so far filed the formal application with the Federal Constitutional Court.
Courts have increasingly judged Sellner’s positions incompatible with the German constitution. According to reporting, the Federal Administrative Court ruled in June 2025 that aspects of his “remigration plan” violated human dignity by discriminating against German citizenship holders.
Despite legal setbacks and public backlash, influential AfD figures in eastern Germany continue to cultivate closer ties with Sellner. Hillje says the eastern state branches view radicalism as an electoral path: these branches have produced the AfD’s strongest results so far. National party leaders, including co‑chairs Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, said only that the matter would be reviewed and that the party may speak with whoever it chooses.
Hillje warns that acceptance of Sellner’s ideas amounts to accepting an AfD persona centered on expulsion. He also sees a progressive radicalization of the party, with national leadership increasingly influenced by extremist milieus.
The AfD branch in Saxony‑Anhalt illustrates this shift: polling around 40% and possibly able to govern alone in September, the branch has drafted a platform proposing sweeping changes to state institutions — from schools and churches to public broadcasting and civic democracy projects — and a radical overhaul of asylum and migration policy. Ulrich Siegmund, the 35‑year‑old lead candidate hoping to become Saxony‑Anhalt’s premier, attended the controversial Potsdam meeting and would be the first AfD state leader if elected.
The growing proximity between parts of the AfD and Sellner underscores an ongoing struggle over the party’s direction: whether it will persist on a radical, exclusionary course favored by many eastern state leaders, or whether federal leadership can contain and moderate those tendencies remains an open question.