Following the electoral success of the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, leading police union officials are calling for stricter protective measures for classified information. Dirk Peglow, Chairman of the Federal German Police Officers’ Association (BDK), told Handelsblatt that an AfD-led government in Saxony-Anhalt could pose “a real danger to national security and to the functioning of the democratic rule of law.” He argued that an AfD-run Interior Ministry would gain access to security-sensitive information, potentially allowing influence over the personal staffing, organizational structure, and political focus of the police and the domestic intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz).
Peglow therefore demands clear regulations for handling particularly sensitive data, stating that a political office should not be an automatic ‘free pass’ to every state secret. He emphasized that both the federal and state governments must definitively clarify exactly which information government members genuinely require, how access will be controlled, and under what conditions insights-such as those related to protecting sources, ongoing operations, or anti-espionage efforts-can be withheld. “We need clear rules before a crisis hits, not only afterwards,” he insisted.
Nancy Emmel, the state chairwoman of the Police Union (GdP) in Saxony-Anhalt, also demands a review of existing protection mechanisms. Currently, members of a state government are not subjected to the standard security vetting procedures. Emmel stressed that the current regulations must be assessed to ensure they are “adequate under any conceivable government composition.” Given the domestic intelligence service’s classification of the AfD regional association as a securely right-extremist movement, Emmel added: “This must be taken seriously, especially when discussing responsibility for the police, the intelligence services, and the handling of highly sensitive information.”
