CDU local politician donates 10,000 euros to AfD, hopes for absolute majority

AfD top candidate Ulrich Siegmund with posters: "Anything is possible" – thought a CDU member as well and donated to the AfD. Source: picture alliance/Chris Emil Janßen/Chris Emil Janssen

A CDU local politician from Stendal has donated €10,000 to the AfD's state election campaign — not to his own party. In an open letter, he expresses hope for the downfall of Sven Schulze and Friedrich Merz.

This donation could further pressure the CDU in Saxony-Anhalt. Bernd Prange, a CDU local politician from Stendal, publicly disclosed his donation of two €5,000 payments on Wednesday in an open letter to the CDU Saxony-Anhalt. The letter is available to WELT.

"This was not a spontaneous decision and certainly not a frivolous one. It was a deliberate step, taken after careful consideration, out of deep concern for our country," Prange writes.

Prange has been a member of the Stendal district council since 2004 — the same district from which AfD top candidate Ulrich Siegmund also comes. The CDU politician also serves as local mayor of the municipality of Altmärkische Höhe.

Politically Explosive Statements

The following lines are particularly explosive:

"I hope that the AfD becomes so strong in the state election in Saxony-Anhalt that it can govern alone. Not out of defiance, but so that the CDU finally wakes up. So that the firewall falls. So that the party defends itself against its leftward course. And so that Friedrich Merz is removed – as a symbol of a leadership that betrays the conservative core of the Union."

Later in the letter, Prange justifies his decision by citing the CDU's departure from conservative values and its approach to left-wing forces. He notes that cooperation with the AfD is already possible in the Stendal district council.

"This cooperation is based on commonalities and the will to preserve our homeland – not on ideological enmity. Whoever denies this denies the reality on the ground."

He continues:

"This open letter is meant to shake up society. Above all, it is meant to shake up the CDU. It is high time that the Union separates itself from extreme left-wing forces and from all those who want to make pacts with the Left Party or the Greens – namely also from people like (CDU Minister-President, editor's note) Sven Schulze. Whoever defends the firewall against the AfD while simultaneously looking to the left is destroying the CDU as a bourgeois people's party."

Prange's Voting Intentions

Prange concludes his letter by stating he remains a conservative.

"The election in September will show whether the party is still capable of learning. But since Sven Schulze has already embarked on the path of integrating left-wing forces and does not want to deviate from it, I will on September 6, 2026, in the state election cast my own vote for the AfD and hope that many other conservatives will do the same, so that the AfD achieves an absolute majority in Saxony-Anhalt and the CDU realizes that it must change its course."

CDU Secretary General Responds

The CDU in Saxony-Anhalt has reacted with concern to the open letter.

"We take the reporting about a possible donation by a CDU member from the CDU district association Stendal very seriously. If the incident proves to be true, this represents a very serious party law matter for us," explained Secretary General Mario Karschunke in response to a WELT inquiry.

Karschunke stated that no one is forced to remain a member of the CDU if they no longer share the party's values. He announced that Prange could face expulsion from the party, in coordination with Stendal's district chairman.

"In coordination with the CDU chairman of..."