If the AfD win Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, their first target will be journalists

When Adolf Hitler was handed power in January 1933, his immediate target was not Germany’s Jews. Nor the gypsies, nor the homosexuals. It was the trade unions and the communists – because they were large, mobilised, and (often) armed. In other words, they offered real resistance and were a real threat to his nascent power. And within two months, by March 1933, the Nazis had opened their first concentration camp, at Oranienburg, some 30km north of Berlin, and filled it with opponents from the Communist and Social Democrat parties. When the radical-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) win their first state on Sunday (6 September), as now seems certain, their first enemy will be the journalists. And that’s official. Because while not armed literally, the media hold the fabled ‘sword of truth’, and the one thing the far-right cannot abide is scrutiny, probing or questioning. Yes, journalists rank somewhere below car insurance salesmen in the public’s affection (we know that), but without exposure, the AfD’s own lies about what they call the “LugerPresse” (Lying Press) will be absorbed into the mainstream narrative. It’s instructive to look at what the AfD has already threatened against the media in Saxony-Anhalt. As its very first official act in the event of taking power, the AfD has announced plans to terminate the treaty funding the regional public broadcaster, the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (Central Germany Broadcaster, MDR). That would face legal challenges and be unprecedented in post-war Germany, but Ulrich Siegmund, the lead AfD candidate, has branded it “anti-German”, “woke” (of course), and declared “no one should be forced to pay for disinformation.” Bleep In response, in August, the MDR began broadcasting a “bleep”, followed by several seconds of silence, following its news bulletins - to alert listeners of their likely closure after the election. And that’s just the start. The AfD has declared that the closure of MDR would be just “the beginning of the end for compulsory, licence-fee-funded broadcasting” - a position Nigel Farage’s Reform in the UK has also adopted against the BBC. The MDR covers the three central (and all ex-East German) states of Saxony-Anhalt (where the AfD is on 42 percent), Thuringia (where the AfD is the largest single party but kept out of power by a three-way coalition) and Saxony (next election not until 2029, but the AfD second-largest party, just one seat behind the CDU). The hard-right racist party, already categorised as a “far-right extremist threat to the constitution", are currently polling around 17 points clear of their nearest rivals - making an outright victory on Sunday not an impossibility. Which would make redundant all the talk about a “firewall” of the mainstream parties not cooperating with them. And let's look in the mirror, and be honest - the AfD are quite cunning about using their enemy’s strengths against them, Jiu-Jitsu style. Last month, Der Spiegel ran a front cover picture of Siegmund, calling him “The most dangerous man in Germany”. The result? Siegmund immediately started handing out signed copies of the weekly magazine to fans at campaign rallies. Siegmund, the 36-year-old former fragrance salesman, was one of those caught by undercover reporters at the notorious and secret Identitarian/AfD ‘Potsdam conference’ in 2023 which advocated “remigration” of any “non-assimilated” foreigners, even those with permanent residency. The lesson?In 1933, just like 2026 if the AfD win, once the bad guys seize control of the steering wheel, everyone else - citizens, civil servants, the media - is just a passenger.