The daughter of one of Germany’s most influential conservative intellectuals has been barred from entering the State teaching profession after authorities raised concerns about her links to her father’s cultural network.
The case highlights a phenomenon that has surfaced repeatedly in Germany in recent years: people without criminal convictions being denied access to public positions or facing other forms of discrimination because of their political associations with the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the country’s broader conservative milieu.
Alruna Hauser, the daughter of publisher and political writer Götz Kubitschek, had completed her studies in German and school music in Dresden, in the eastern German state of Saxony, and passed her State examination. She was due to begin her teacher-training placement at the Gymnasium Dresden-Cotta, a State secondary school in the city, on August 10, 2026.
Hauser has no criminal record or pending criminal proceedings. She is not a politician, has never held public office, has no social media presence and had never appeared publicly before the controversy surrounding her case.
Saxony’s State Office for Schools and Education (Landesamt für Schule und Bildung) nevertheless withdrew an admission that had already been granted after concerns were raised internally about her association with her father and her commitment to Germany’s constitutional order, prompting the authorities to seek an assessment from Saxony’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the state’s domestic intelligence agency.
The agency reported that Hauser had regularly attended public events organised by her father.
The Dresden Administrative Court rejected her challenge, and on September 21, 2026 the Saxon Higher Administrative Court in Bautzen rejected her appeal in case 2 B 264/26. The decision is final and cannot be appealed.
Her father, Götz Kubitschek, is a prominent publisher and political writer who has played an important role in Germany’s conservatism and in the intellectual environment surrounding the AfD.
Kubitschek is the founder and publisher of Antaios, a publishing house based in the village of Schnellroda, in the neighbouring state of Saxony-Anhalt, where he lives with his family. It specialises in political and philosophical works associated with the German New Right. He is also the publisher of Sezession, a political and cultural magazine that has become an important platform for right-wing intellectuals.
Kubitschek has never held office within the AfD and has never been a party member. His influence has instead operated largely outside the party’s formal structures, through publishing, conferences and political networks.
German reporting has documented his links with prominent AfD figures, particularly Björn Höcke, while other senior AfD politicians, including Alice Weidel, Alexander Gauland and Maximilian Krah, have also appeared at events associated with the wider Schnellroda milieu.
Kubitschek himself has not been convicted of a crime. The controversy surrounding him and his organisations concerns their political, cultural and ideological activities.
Kubitschek and his activities have been under scrutiny by Germany’s domestic intelligence services for years — a practice his supporters and critics of the agency regard as politically motivated. The role of the domestic intelligence services has itself become politically contentious. The agency operates under the administrative and operational supervision of the Federal Ministry of the Interior.
Critics accuse the intelligence services of being politically directed and of using their powers to stigmatise or restrict political opponents and the wider AfD milieu. Hauser herself has questioned the neutrality of the authorities involved in her case.
According to the court, Hauser regularly attended events in Schnellroda between 2022 and 2025, including book presentations and lectures. Those events were run by the Institut für Staatspolitik, a think tank her father co-founded in 2000 and which Saxony-Anhalt’s intelligence agency classified as “confirmed right-wing extremist” in 2019, the federal service following in 2023. The institute was dissolved in 2024, though its seminars continued in Schnellroda under a new body. The authorities treated her participation as evidence relevant to whether she supported the organisation’s objectives.
Hauser argues that Schnellroda is her family home and that attending public events there should not automatically be interpreted as political activism.
The Saxon authorities nevertheless asked the state constitutional-protection agency to assess her activities. According to the court, the agency concluded that her repeated participation in the institute’s events amounted to support for an organisation pursuing what the authorities considered anti-constitutional objectives.
Hauser disputes that interpretation. She says she completed her studies and practical placements without being politically conspicuous and argues that the proceedings are ultimately about the political conflict surrounding her family rather than her suitability as a teacher.
The ruling has drawn criticism from Hauser and commentators. Hauser told the Berliner Zeitung that “this is a political procedure” and argued that the case was being used to make an example of her. In a separate interview with Tichys Einblick, she said: “It is not about me. An example is supposed to be made here.”
Commentator Alan Posener described the decision in Die Welt as resembling Sippenhaftung — collective punishment based on family association — and warned of what he called “dangerous illiberalism”.
Saxony’s culture minister Conrad Clemens, of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), defended the outcome, saying there was no place for extremists in the state’s schools.
The Hauser case is the latest flashpoint in a wider German controversy over what critics on the right describe as growing political discrimination against conservatives and the broader AfD milieu. From the historic Berufsverbot — the practice of screening applicants for public-sector jobs for their political loyalty — to recent cases involving AfD-linked teachers, police officers and civil servants, political associations are once again carrying professional consequences, even where no criminal offence is involved.
More than 220 people who stood as AfD candidates in elections over the previous five years currently work in Germany’s public sector, including 63 teachers, 49 police officers, 40 administrative officials and 24 soldiers, and some could face professional consequences depending on how their political activities are assessed, according to an analysis published on May 20, 2025 by the ARD political magazine Report Mainz.
German authorities insist that AfD membership alone does not justify exclusion and that each case must be assessed individually. Critics argue, though, that constitutional-loyalty rules are being applied in ways that can turn political affiliation — and, in Hauser’s case, even family and social associations — into a professional liability.
