A photograph published this week has drawn fresh scrutiny to Martin Reichardt, a federal lawmaker from the Alternative for Germany party and head of the party’s branch in Saxony-Anhalt, after it appeared to show him making a Nazi salute during a 2020 gathering. Politico’s Inside AfD podcast published the image, and two people said the gesture was intended as a Nazi salute while another attendee knelt before Reichardt during what they described as a staged scene. Reichardt disputed that interpretation, saying it was part of a “humorous knighting ceremony.” Public displays of Nazi symbols and gestures are illegal in Germany, and a 2024 regional court ruling said a salute using the left arm can also be punishable.
The episode has triggered condemnation from political opponents as the AfD continues to gain support, particularly in Saxony-Anhalt ahead of regional elections in September. Sven Schulze, the state’s minister-president from the Christian Democratic Union, said a Hitler salute was a declaration of belief rather than an accident and called for Reichardt to be expelled from the party. The AfD’s Saxony-Anhalt branch rejected the criticism, calling it an attempt to manufacture a scandal and repeating Reichardt’s explanation that the gesture was not a Hitler salute. Reichardt did not respond to a request for comment from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The controversy comes at a moment of broader debate in Germany over the country’s relationship with its Nazi past. Newly searchable databases built from surviving Nazi Party membership card files have prompted many Germans to investigate whether relatives were members of the NSDAP, often uncovering histories that had been hidden or softened within family memory. Researchers and historians say the records are encouraging a new phase of reckoning with the past, especially at a personal and family level, even as prominent voices in the AfD have argued that Germany should move beyond what they describe as a politics of historical guilt.
That tension has sharpened as the AfD has expanded its national and regional influence. The party won 20.8% of the vote in last year’s national election, becoming the second-largest force in the Bundestag with 152 seats, and polls indicate it could perform strongly in Saxony-Anhalt. Critics argue the renewed public focus on Nazi-era records serves as a warning about how democratic systems can erode gradually and how extremism can become normalized. Others, including political scientist Jürgen Falter, say the current debate may not necessarily halt the far right’s momentum but could still force a deeper public examination of how widespread support for the Nazi Party once became among ordinary Germans.