Six candidates for the far-right (by German standards, that means "moderately conservative") Allianz für Deutschland party have died in recent weeks. Police are saying the deaths are not due to foul play, rather "the deaths were either the result of natural causes or were not being revealed for privacy reasons."
The Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany or AfD) is the only party that has refused to agree not to campaign against the unrestricted immigration that is devastating German society and the German economy; instead, it has embraced a pledge of mass deportation. For its efforts, the German domestic intelligence agency, Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, or just BfV if you value your tongue, declared the AfD a "right-wing extremist" organization that presents a danger to democracy. "The ethnicity-and ancestry-based conception of the people that predominates within the party," harumphed the BfV leadership in a statement, "is not compatible with the free democratic order,"
This declaration enables enhanced surveillance by Germany's security apparatus.
The move enables the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution to use secret methods to monitor the party, for example, by recruiting confidential informants and intercepting communications with tools such as audio and video recordings nationwide.
Officialdom is pointing out that some 20,000 candidates are standing for election in local elections in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia on September 14 and saying that we should expect some breakage before election day. No explanation has been offered for why no other party has suffered fatalities.
Candidates Ralph Lange, 66, Wolfgang Klinger, 71, Stefan Berendes, 59, and Wolfgang Seitz, 59, are the first four who died within two weeks of each other.
The City of Rheinberg announced Seitz's death on August 21, before the City of Schwerte said on August 26 that Klinger had died "unexpectedly" on August 19. The next day, the City of Blomberg announced "the unfortunate death" of Lange on August 27 and, on August 28, the City of Bad Lippspringe said Berendes "died unexpectedly."
On Tuesday, Gottschalk named René Herford and Patrick Tietze as the reserve candidates who died.
The cluster of deaths has raised eyebrows.
Despite the police ruling out suspicious circumstances, retired economist Stefan Homburg claimed in a post on X that the number of candidates' deaths was "statistically almost impossible”. His post was later retweeted by the AfD’s co-leader Alice Weidel, while AfD supporter and billionaire Elon Musk responded to the tweet with an exclamation mark.
🇩🇪6 AfD candidates have died suddenly before the North Rhine-Westphalia election. A former EU Commissioner remarked that the EU may annul the result if the AfD wins, reflecting the establishment’s hostile stance. Should we question if democracy is truly at stake? Our analysis👇… pic.twitter.com/TEkZkl2nBC
— The European Conservative (@EuroConOfficial) September 2, 2025
The AfD is not projected to win enough seats to throw out the current ruling coalition—an uneasy marriage of the allegedly conservative Christian Democratic Union and Greens, which goes to show the uniparty is everywhere.. However, it is performing much better than last time around, and its increased voting bloc will make the next government much more fragile.
NORDRHEIN-WESTFALEN | Sonntagsfrage Landtagswahl INSA/NIUS
— Deutschland Wählt (@Wahlen_DE) August 22, 2025
CDU: 35% (-1)
SPD: 18% (-4)
AfD: 16% (+7)
GRÜNE: 13% (-4)
LINKE: 8% (+5)
FDP: 4% (-3)
BSW: 3% (NEU)
Sonstige: 3% (-3)
Änderungen zur letzten Umfrage vom 03. Mai 2023
Verlauf: https://t.co/F1oTwkIdew#ltwnw #ltwnrw pic.twitter.com/Om06uYfzzQ
CDU=Christian Democrats; conservative in a go-along-get-along kind of way. Imagine Paul Ryan, only German.
SPD=Socialist Party
AfD=Populist Right
Grune=Watermelons, i.e., green on the outside and red on the inside
Linke=Left, or more socialsist
FDP=Free Democrats, think of them as country club, good government types
BSW=Reason and Justice Party, or more socialists
Sonstige=Literally "The Others," think of them as Antifa but without the energy
The deaths of six candidates just weeks before the election look sufficiently suspicious to raise reasonable questions. Like, who benefits? The answer to that would seem to be the party, organization, or country that knows it can't win this election but will profit from an enhanced outrage vote for the AfD.
[CORRECTION: The orginal version of this article referred to AfD as Allianz für Deutschland. That was incorrect.]
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