A long-serving Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician has broken with his party’s political line, donating €10,000 to the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and urging conservatives to vote for the party in a State election in Saxony-Anhalt, eastern Germany, on September 6, 2026.
Bernd Prange, the CDU mayor of Altmärkische Höhe and a member of the Stendal district council in Saxony-Anhalt, made his position public on August 19, 2026, in an open letter published in full by the Ostdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.
The AfD is polling above 40 per cent and could win an outright majority in the State parliament, a result the CDU is trying to prevent under Minister-President and lead candidate Sven Schulze. Schulze took over as head of the State government on January 28, 2026, after Reiner Haseloff stood down early.
Prange confirmed in his letter that he had donated a total of €10,000 to the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, in two instalments of €5,000 each, and announced that he would vote for the party. The AfD State branch confirmed that it had received the two donations.
AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund had disclosed the first €5,000 at the campaign launch at the end of July without naming the donor, the Volksstimme said.
In his open letter, Prange wrote: “That was not a spontaneous decision and certainly not taken lightly. It was a conscious step, taken after careful consideration, out of deep concern for our country.”
The 59-year-old haulage contractor has been a CDU member since 1992 and sits on the Stendal district council for the party.
He has been mayor of Altmärkische Höhe since the municipality was created in 2010 and was confirmed in the post in October 2023.
Prange argues that voting for the AfD is necessary to force his own party to abandon what he sees as its leftward drift.
“My conservative values – performance, order, security, national sovereignty, economic reason and the protection of our cultural identity – I find increasingly less represented in the CDU,” he wrote.
Prange accuses the CDU of moving steadily to the left while maintaining an increasingly rigid Brandmauer, the political firewall against cooperation with the AfD. The policy rules out any deal with the party, often leaving the CDU dependent on left-wing parties in order to govern.
“Whoever defends the firewall against the AfD while simultaneously looking to the left is destroying the CDU as a bourgeois popular party,” Prange wrote.
He also criticised cooperation with left-wing and radical left-wing politicians, warning that parts of the CDU are abandoning their own voters. He named Schulze, calling on the Union to break with those prepared to make pacts with the Left or the Greens.
“I have the justified concern that parts of the CDU are betraying and selling this country and their own party to the Left,” Prange wrote.
Prange calls on conservatives to vote for the AfD as a way of forcing the CDU to change course. He has also demanded the removal of Chancellor Friedrich Merz as CDU federal chairman, calling him the symbol of a leadership giving up the conservative core of the Union.
“I will cast my vote for the AfD in the state election on September 6, 2026, and hope that many other conservatives will do the same, so that the AfD achieves an absolute majority in Saxony-Anhalt and the CDU comes to the realisation that it must change its course,” he wrote.
Asked by Focus why he did not simply resign from the CDU, Prange said he wanted the party to throw him out.
On August 20, 2026, CDU Saxony-Anhalt secretary-general Mario Karschunke said the party was taking the reports seriously and called the matter a very serious question of party law should the donation be confirmed. The Stendal CDU district executive is expected to consider a possible party-expulsion procedure.
Karschunke also delivered a political message to Prange: “Nobody is forced to remain a member of our party if they no longer share its fundamental political convictions.”
Dennis Radtke, chairman of the CDU’s workers’ wing, told Handelsblatt that anyone calling for a vote for the AfD should draw the consequences and leave the party.
Schulze has also distanced himself from Prange. On August 20 he criticised the recommendation on the Politico podcast Berlin Playbook, saying: “I don’t think that is good.” He added that he could not prescribe what was right but considered Prange’s approach wrong.
Schulze ruled out dealing with the issue before the election.
The AfD is established as the leading political force both in Saxony-Anhalt and across Germany. The pollytix poll conducted from August 3 to 8 and published on August 12 put the AfD at 43 per cent in the State, compared with 23 per cent for the CDU, and an INSA poll conducted from July 31 to August 6 gave the AfD 42 per cent and the CDU 22 per cent.
At national level, an INSA poll published on August 18 put the AfD at 28.5 per cent, ahead of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), at 20.5 per cent. A Forsa poll published the same day also had the AfD in first place, at 28 per cent, compared with 21 per cent for the CDU/CSU.
In Saxony-Anhalt the AfD and CDU together command 66 per cent in the pollytix survey, and nationally the AfD and CDU/CSU account for around 49 per cent. Yet the Brandmauer prevents the two largest forces on the right from cooperating politically, leaving the CDU to seek governing majorities with other parties.
On the pollytix figures the AfD would take 41 of at least 83 seats in Magdeburg, one short of an absolute majority.
The election could have consequences well beyond Saxony-Anhalt. An outright AfD majority could strengthen the argument that the party can no longer be treated as a marginal force and increase pressure on the CDU to reconsider its strategy towards it.
