Martin Reichardt, a member of the Bundestag and the state chairman of the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, is facing scrutiny over a photograph dating back to 2020. The image purportedly shows him performing a Hitler salute in the presence of fellow party members. The magazine “Politico” reports that this gesture was documented in the photo and that two eyewitnesses told the magazine they recognized it as a Hitler salute, though the AfD vehemently denies this accusation.
The photograph also includes a doctor and a former AfD state parliament candidate who is kneeling before Reichardt, holding up a document. According to the individual, this document was his application for membership in the AfD; however, the party’s national executive board never accepted him, having rejected his application twice at the time.
Two witnesses allegedly told “Politico” that the man addressed Reichardt during the submission of his application using the phrase, “Mein Führer,” though Reichardt refutes this claim. He merely confirmed the authenticity of the photograph.
Reichardt himself acknowledged the photo was genuine but insisted he did not display a Hitler salute. Instead, he claimed the gesture was a “humorous knightly strike” directed at the man. A spokesperson for the AfD Saxony-Anhalt echoed this version, asserting that the gesture was not a Hitler salute but a playful “knight’s bow.” The spokesperson further stated that this action was a humorous reference to the fact that the former AfD executive board, under the controversial chairman Jörg Meuthen, had rejected the applicant’s membership request. The spokesperson also added that the precise words exchanged during this almost six-year-old event are no longer recalled by anyone involved.
However, “Politico” suggests that this narrative conflicts with the timeline. The photograph is dated June 7, 2020, and the member application carries the same date. Yet, according to the magazine, the executive board only made its decisions rejecting the membership in September 2020 and again in January 2021. Therefore, “Politico” contends that there were no rejected applications to reference for a “knight’s bow” at the time the photo was taken.
When asked for clarification regarding this chronological contradiction, Reichardt did not respond. The man who held the membership application described the scene as “totally meant to be funny” and stated, “It was a pure joke.” He dismissed the suggestion of being called “Mein Führer” as “absolute nonsense.” Furthermore, he remarked that he makes jokes without concern for “political correctness” or the mainstream press, and that he is not interested in Nazism or the National Socialism; “I am interested in Germany 2026, that interests me.”
Adding to the public debate, Saxony-Anhalt Minister President Sven Schulze, whose CDU is currently lagging the AfD in polls ahead of the state election scheduled for September, commented on the matter mid-week. Schulze firmly asserted that the photo clearly depicts a Hitler salute, calling it “a confession, not a slip-up.” He stated, “Whoever shows something like that has no place in a parliament,” and added that those who minimize or ignore the situation are implicitly complicit, while those who stand by grinning “expose their own sentiments in a frightening way.”
Schulze also pointed to Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, who is also visible in the photograph. He described Tillschneider as the “right hand” of AfD top candidate Ulrich Siegmund and the intellectual architect of the AfD’s election program for Saxony-Anhalt, stating that Tillschneider is “equally guilty as Martin Reichardt himself.”
The Minister President demanded that Ulrich Siegmund “show today whether he can lead: exclusion, resignation, a clear line.” Schulze argued that both Tillschneider and Reichardt must be immediately excluded, adding that anything less would not merely be approval, but “assent and a Nazi confession.”
