Saxony-Anhalt Arts Brace for AfD Cultural Overhaul After 1 State Election Win
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Sep 18
Saxony-Anhalt Arts Brace for AfD Cultural Overhaul After 1 State Election Win
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Sep 18
Summary
Art institutions across Saxony-Anhalt are preparing to resist the AfD’s proposed cultural overhaul as the far-right party seeks a coalition to take power after winning the state election.
The party has made culture central to its agenda, pledging more “patriotic” programming, a break from multicultural influences and an end to what it calls Germany’s “guilt complex” over the Nazi past.
State-funded theaters, museums and other arts groups fear an existential fight because a new government could use public funding to pressure institutions into adopting that line.
The dispute reaches beyond one state: the AfD has singled out the Bauhaus—closed by the Nazis and later celebrated worldwide—as lacking “national roots,” turning Saxony-Anhalt into a test case for Germany’s cultural politics.