[ENG] How the AfD is paving the way for a departure from democratic values in the Wurzen city council
On Tuesday, April 15, 2025, the city council meeting in Wurzen saw a majority of councilors abandon democratic norms and values. Values that they are meant to uphold and defend when necessary. The debate focused on the city of Wurzen's funding of the socio-cultural work of the Netzwerk für Demokratische Kultur e.V. (NDK) for the year 2026. The funding was to amount to approximately 12,900EU. This so-called “municipality share” is the necessary local funding for a much larger grant, the socalled “cultural space grant.” This funding supports the activities of the D5 Cultural and Community Center on Domplatz, which organizes 30 cultural events and provides open spaces and support for volunteers and their projects. This is a unique offering in Wurzen, and has been supported by the city for many years with a proportionate and relatively small grant for this very reason.
The AfD city councilor Lars Vogel used Tuesday's city council meeting, during which the funding was voted on, as a political stage to make a clear point against an association that has been openly marked as an enemy, and which they have been targeting for years. For several minutes he deliberately spread falsehoods about the association's work and political orientation, its goals, target groups, formats, and the economic efficiency and proportionality of the funds requested. All of this went unchallenged by his colleagues. No questions followed this statement. His words clearly expressed the AfD party's opposition to the NDK and its mission statement, which expressly upholds democratic values such as plurality, equal opportunities, and freedom values that the association represents and lives by, together with many citizens of our town.
There was little mention or advocacy for the association's work that evening, which has been ongoing for 25 years. Those who interact with and use NDK’s spaces would certainly have liked to speak, but as guests during the evening they were not given the opportunity to do so. The tirades from the AfD and its representative Lars Vogel are not surprising. He previously sat on the city council for the far-right “Neues Forum für Wurzen” (New Forum for Wurzen) party, which has been agitating against the NDK since its founding. It is particularly scandalous that in the vote, which was surprisingly ordered to be held in secret, far more votes against NDK’s funding were cast than the AfD have seats. Twelve of the 20 eligible voters voted against funding for the association, five voted in favor, and three abstained. The secret ballot does not allow any precise conclusions to be drawn about the distribution of votes. However, the 12 votes cast against funding correspond exactly to the combined number of AfD (6) and CDU city councilors (6) present.
This is a decidedly politically motivated attack on an active part of democratic civil society. It was supported by a majority in the Wurzen city council. The decision thus has implications and significance far beyond the rejected grant. (The AfD's statement in the run-up to the vote illustrated this fact clearly.) The immediate consequences of the decision are also massive. An important part of the association's work for Wurzen will no longer be funded in 2026. This will affect the entire program of events, the open house, and the groups that have been able to use it so far, various participation projects such as the Wurzener Extrablatt, and the volunteer group that organizes events in the basement and runs the Wednesday bar. Cooperation projects with, among others, the city administration itself are also at risk, such as the Year of Jewish Culture 2026 and the cleaning of Stolpersteine.
“There are people who find what we do meaningless or even nonsensical, and who have long wished that we were no longer here. People who do not share democratic values that stand for social coexistence, solidarity, and respect. But the NDK was founded in Wurzen 25 years ago to strengthen and defend these values, and we will not stop doing so. We owe this to the people of Wurzen, who also stand up for these values every day," said Martina Glass, managing director of the association.