The Long Shadow of Remigration - How Martin Sellner Spoke at the Town Hall Despite a Ban and the AfD Provided Intellectual Cover

Chemnitz/Stade, July 2025 – It was an appearance that should never have happened - and yet it did. Martin Sellner, the central figure of the so-called “Identitarian Movement” and an ideological architect of the European far right, spoke inside the Chemnitz town hall. Not publicly, not officially - but audibly. From a small office window at the rear of the building, he delivered a several-minute speech to the gathered crowd, after two courts had prohibited his planned appearance in an official municipal event room. The city, as a spokeswoman told MDR Sachsen, “had to acknowledge that he was still able to put on his show.” What might seem like a minor legal maneuver is in fact the expression of a political culture war that has long since reached the halls of local government. The rejection of the event by the Administrative Court of Chemnitz and the Higher Administrative Court in Bautzen was unambiguous: the planned speech on the topic of “remigration” did not fall within the jurisdiction of the city council, the ruling stated - and there was also the well-founded expectation that “extremist and racist content” would be disseminated. That, according to the city’s usage regulations, was not permitted. The decision is final. But that did not stop the movement from placing its message anyway - through symbolism, strategy, and a carefully staged performance. Behind the town hall, about 60 supporters of the “Free Saxons” demonstrated, while roughly 500 people - organized by the alliance “Chemnitz verbindet” - formed a human chain against hate and incitement. It is an image that increasingly repeats itself in German cities: on one side, a democratic uprising against the authoritarian reshaping of language and politics. On the other, a far-right movement that lays claim to vocabulary, despite prohibition.

Sellner’s appearance was no isolated incident - it was part of an orchestrated process. Already in the lead-up, Björn Höcke, parliamentary leader of the AfD in Thuringia, had openly promoted Sellner’s book “Remigration. A Proposal” on his Telegram channel. On the cover: a harmless-looking Höcke in the woods, the book resting on his knee, next to the bold label “Reading Recommendation.” The text beneath emphasized how important the topic was - after all, the administrative court had explicitly referenced the term “remigration.” And whether the presiding judge had even read the book? Höcke expressed doubt - and defended the author against the accusation of labeling citizens with immigrant backgrounds as “second-class people.” This ideological complicity was also made clear at the AfD Stade, where Martin Sellner, together with Oliver Strotmann, AfD, presented his book “Remigration - A Proposal” - staged like an ordinary press conference. Laid out figuratively on the table were not only his theses on forced repatriation, but also the programmatically titled work “Not Without the AfD,” an essentially empty text by Strotmann. It was a visual declaration of intellectual division of labor: here the ethnic nationalist visionary, there the party-political apparatus - united by the shared goal of turning misanthropic rhetoric into government policy. What might appear as rhetorical maneuvering is in truth ideological alignment. Martin Sellner, under surveillance in Austria for his ties to right-wing extremism, is increasingly being legitimized by the AfD parliamentary group in Germany as a source of inspiration. The semantic softening of his agenda - the forced, state-supported repatriation of millions of people with immigrant backgrounds - is cloaked in the intellectually appealing term “remigration.” That Björn Höcke, who has repeatedly attracted attention for historical revisionist statements, publicly endorses the book, is more than just a reading tip: it is a political signal.

And so, at the end of the day in Chemnitz, there stands not just a ruptured conflict between city administration, judiciary, and the far-right scene. But also a lesson in how deeply the normalization of far-right thinking has already penetrated. Those who give a platform to an author like Sellner - whether on Telegram, in city council, or from an office window - lend social resonance to a völkisch concept like “remigration.” And those in the AfD who speak of wanting to “hear all arguments” often mean, in truth: to shift all boundaries. On this day, Chemnitz may have closed the door to the event hall. But the open flank lies elsewhere - in language, in symbolism, in strategy. And it is precisely there that the real contest for power is being fought.