A small city in eastern Germany has narrowly avoided becoming the first in the country since the Second World War to elect a neo-Nazi mayor, after a conservative candidate defeated a far-right extremist by a margin of roughly 500 votes. Marcus Hoffmann of the centre-right CDU won the mayoral runoff in Aue-Bad Schlema, a town of around 19,000 people in the Erzgebirge region of Saxony, with 52.7 percent of the vote. His opponent, Stefan Hartung of the Freie Sachsen — a fringe party monitored by Germany's domestic intelligence service — took 47.3 percent. Hartung had led in early in-person ballot counts on Sunday evening; it was the postal votes that swung the result decisively for Hoffmann.

The closeness of the race has sharpened national debate about the pace of far-right advance in Germany, a country with particular historical sensitivity to such developments. Hartung, a 37-year-old IT professional, has been active in extremist politics since adolescence. He previously ran as an NPD candidate — the NPD, or National Democratic Party of Germany, rebranded itself as Die Heimat (Homeland) in 2023 and is classified by the government as a neo-Nazi organisation — and has sat on the local district council since 2014. He is now deputy chairman of the Freie Sachsen, a party that German authorities say rejects the Federal Republic entirely and promotes a so-called "Säxit", the secession of Saxony into a larger historical territory that would include parts of present-day Poland. In previous years, Hartung organised torch marches toward asylum-seeker shelters and has called for vigilante action to expel refugees. During this campaign, however, he sought a more mainstream image, appearing without far-right insignia and repeatedly insisting he did not consider himself a neo-Nazi.

That Hartung won 29 percent in the first round last month drew nationwide attention. His vote share grew further in the runoff — he gained roughly 1,800 additional votes, a number that closely matches the first-round total of the local AfD candidate, who declined to make a voting recommendation for the second round. A candidate from Die Linke (The Left) did call on his supporters to back Hoffmann. The result in Aue-Bad Schlema was not isolated: on the same day, an AfD-affiliated police officer won 43 percent of votes in a first-round district administrator race in Saalekreis, in the neighbouring state of Saxony-Anhalt, beating the CDU candidate into second place.

The broader concern among analysts and politicians centres on upcoming state elections in September, where polls suggest the AfD — already the second-largest group in the Bundestag, Germany's federal parliament — could win its first regional executive offices. In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD's candidate for minister-president has polled above 40 percent and has spoken of appointing up to 200 loyalists to senior administrative roles. Civil service associations and rival parties are already preparing legal challenges. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a northern coastal state, the AfD's leading candidate has promised to intervene in matters outside state competence, including national security and criminal law. What either leader might do with their state police force is a particular source of unease — and politicians warn that any federal intervention to restrain them could itself generate further populist support.