Schools become battleground as Germany's far-right AfD eyes regional election

STENDAL, Germany, July 14 - A woodwork teacher in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt has triggered a dispute over political expression in the classroom ahead of a regional election in two months that could produce radical changes in schools if the far-right AfD wins.

To the AfD, whose nationalist, anti-immigrant platform has made it a formidable political force, the question is one of fairness and proper educational practice. To its critics, it is about silencing legitimate discussion of a party whose programme, they say, would undo safeguards against a revival of Germany's extremist past.

Max Heckel, who teaches craft and technical work in the town of Stendal, was reported to Saxony-Anhalt's Schools Office last year after a conversation with a pupil who he said had asked him as he was clearing up after a lesson whether he had voted for the AfD (Alternative for Germany).

Heckel said he had explained that he had not voted for the party, in part because the domestic security service had classified it as "extremist".

TEACHER'S CHAT WITH PUPIL TRIGGERS THREATS AND ABUSE

Weeks later, he received a formal warning for breaching rules that require teachers to remain politically neutral in the classroom.

Since then, he says, he has been abused online, threatened with violence and had his car vandalised, and been been verbally attacked by senior AfD politicians, all while challenging the reprimand as unjustified.

Heckel, who said teachers have a responsibility to defend Germany's democratic foundations, said many colleagues were reluctant to speak out for fear of disciplinary procedures as well as antagonism from outsiders.

He said the affair showed that schools were under pressure, even before the Sept. 6 election, not to allow criticism of the AfD, which surveys suggest could take around 40% of the vote. The centre-right CDU, headed nationally by Chancellor Friedrich Merz, stands at under 30%.

Saxony-Anhalt's school authority declined to comment, saying the case was still being heard.

For the AfD, Heckel, a part-time musician who runs an informal cultural centre in Stendal and has clashed with the party in the past, exemplifies a left-wing culture it is determined to stamp out in schools.

Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD's candidate for premier in Saxony-Anhalt, who has raised the case repeatedly in the state assembly and elsewhere, said the party would remove political influence as part of a wider overhaul of education.

"We want lessons to remain neutral, so that pupils can form their own views of the political landscape in this country. We don't need teachers who campaign in any particular direction," he told Reuters.

He dismissed the security services' evaluation of the AfD as politically motivated. The AfD won an interim order this year suspending an assessment by the BfV, the national domestic security agency, that the party was "confirmed right-wing extremist".

AFD CLASSED AS EXTREMIST GROUP IN SAXONY-ANHALT

But the Saxony-Anhalt BfV still classifies the state branch of the party as extremist - meaning that it opposes the liberal-democratic foundations of the state, a characterisation the AfD rejects.

The AfD sees Saxony-Anhalt, where it hopes to form a regional government for the first time, as a stepping stone to winning a federal election, and the dispute over a conversation in a classroom in Stendal points to wider tensions ahead.

Individual German states have broad powers over cultural and education issues - but their autonomy is ultimately limited by the need to ensure a degree of national standardisation.

Education has particular resonance because the system was designed in part as a bulwark against the Nazi ideology of the 1930s and 1940s. Schoolchildren have for decades been required to learn about wartime atrocities committed in the name of racial purity and national supremacy.

The AfD believes the decades-long tradition of "Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung", or coming to terms with the past, has created a guilt complex and undermined national pride. It says the school system has been weakened by falling standards and functions that have nothing to do with education, such as integrating children from refugee families.

Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, an architect of the party's cultural and education agenda in Saxony-Anhalt, said education would be one of the main focuses of an AfD government.

"We want a completely new, a completely different education policy," he told Reuters. "Political influence on children, as we experience it – political indoctrination – is not a job for schools."

Under a "patriotic cultural policy", schools would focus more closely on medieval rulers and 19th-century giants of German history such as the "Iron Chancellor", Otto von Bismarck. Social and psychological support and integration measures would be scrapped.

UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION

To the CDU and other mainstream parties, the AfD is threatening to undermine a post World War Two consensus aimed at reinforcing the foundations of a democratic society.

They have ruled out cooperating with the party under a so-called "firewall" policy aimed at isolating it and preventing it from forming a coalition if it does not win an overall majority.

For the party's critics, the AfD's interpretation of neutrality would effectively restrict informed debate and limit children's ability to decide.

Heckel's view is unambiguous.

"There is a duty to uphold the constitution," he said, "and that imposes an obligation on us to protect the free and democratic basic order, both in our private lives and in the workplace." REUTERS