Right-wing extremism | Former NPD man to join AfD in Meissen town hall

In December 2023, the AfD achieved a spectacular victory in Pirna, Saxony. Tim Lochner, a master carpenter nominated by the AfD , won the mayoral election in the district town of 40,000 inhabitants. This marked the first time in Germany that the party, which is considered to be firmly right-wing extremist in Saxony, had appointed the head of a major municipal administration.

In Meißen, also a district town and, with 29,000 inhabitants, only slightly smaller than Pirna, a new mayor will be elected on September 7, 2025, and the AfD once again expects good chances. The party, which received 44.9 percent of the second votes in the city in February's federal election, is fielding another independent entrepreneur, René Jurisch. The 51-year-old, whose company carries out demolition and paving work, already serves on the city council and district council for the party. In the city council election in June 2024, when the AfD received 32.3 percent, he achieved by far the best result of all candidates with almost 3,300 votes. He now leads the council group, which, with nine members, is more than twice as large as the CDU's.

Jurisch is not a member of the AfD, but around 2000 he belonged to another party: the NPD. This equally right-wing extremist party achieved its most spectacular success in 2004, gaining 9.2 percent of the vote and entering the Saxon state parliament. Jurisch had already resigned by that time and later stated that he had turned his back on the NPD because of its "socialist goals" and anti-Semitic stance toward Israel. The man, once described by the "Sächsische Zeitung" as a "fan of weapons, ammunition, and the Confederate flag," was also the founder of an "Association for the Preservation of Germanic Customs, Schwarze Sonne Meißen." The association organized solstice celebrations and offered homework help, but was temporarily targeted by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which in 2001 expressed suspicion that "in view of its personnel composition and symbolism," the association was "spreading right-wing extremist ideology." The Black Sun is a symbol of the SS commonly used by neo-Nazis. The organization was dissolved in 2006.

Jurisch now appears reformed and speaks of "youthful sins." Suspicions that he is still at least close to right-wing extremist ideology are fueled, however, by a banner reading "Stop man-made population change," which is said to have hung in front of his house for a time and is circulating on social media. As a city councilor, he is torpedoing the work of the democracy and integration alliance Buntes Meißen (Colorful Meißen). The association, which has recently been targeted by right-wing extremists and even had a fake grenade placed in front of its headquarters after numerous threats and arson attacks at the end of 2024, was disparagingly discredited by the AfD member as a "colorful, financially expensive Meissen favorite club for non-violent pottery" and accused of "unbridled self-service." At the instigation of the AfD in the city council, the association's municipal funding was cut in April. As early as October 2024, Jurisch had ensured that Buntes Meißen was removed from a list of proposals for EU funding.

The example of the association, however, shows that Jurisch and his party are not acting in isolation. The local CDU is also putting pressure on Buntes Meißen. Its local state parliament representative, Daniela Kuge, seconded the AfD attacks with a parliamentary question about the amount of state funding for the association in the Saxon parliament. In an article about CDU attacks on civil society projects, the daily newspaper "Taz" attested to the representative's "astonishingly good relationship" with former NPD member Jurisch, with whom she has been seen posing intimately under the Christmas tree in social media photos. She is not alone in her party in sharing such closeness. Daniela Menzel, a member of the Meißen CDU district executive committee, wrote on a social network after Jurisch was nominated as mayoral candidate, congratulating him and wishing him a "fair and objective debate."

"We don't want Pirna conditions in Meissen."

Heiko Schulze Citizens for Meissen Initiative

At the same time, CDU city councilors are also part of a nearly 30-member initiative that, at a photo opportunity at Meissen's Tuchmachertor, demonstratively supported another candidate for the city hall post: Markus Renner, who has been mayor for construction since 2016 and is now also deputy to the outgoing mayor, Olaf Raschke. Supporters also include representatives of several voters' associations, as well as the SPD and the Left Party. They emphasize the administrative experience of the equally non-partisan candidate, praising him as a "guarantor of stability and cooperation," but also explicitly see their initiative as a bulwark against the AfD. They don't want "Pirna-like conditions" in Meissen, said city councilor Heiko Schulze of the "Citizens for Meissen" initiative, who spoke of a truly "precarious situation" on the city's broadcaster "Meißen Fernsehen."

In the previous mayoral election in 2018, "Citizens for Meißen" also fielded an alliance candidate against Raschke: Frank Richter, the former director of the State Center for Political Education. Richter surprisingly won the first round. In the runoff , he fell 98 votes short of victory . The main reason was likely the withdrawal of the AfD candidate, which subsequently mounted a massive campaign against Richter and, after Raschke's election victory, celebrated having prevented a "red takeover" of the city. Now the AfD hopes to win the office itself.