Saxony-Anhalt between history and political instrumentalization

Heinrich the Vogler, Emperor Otto I, Luther, Clausewitz, Nietzsche, Bismarck. Why are the names of the leaders and thinkers of German history concentrated in the small state of Saxony-Anhalt, whose largest city has less than 250,000 inhabitants? The state archaeologist Harald Meller explains it like this: Today's Saxony-Anhalt is a favorable natural area; The soil around Magdeburg was among the best in the world. That is why, over the millennia, wealth and, as a result, power and spirit have repeatedly been concentrated there.

In addition, according to Meller, there is a special location of today's Saxony-Anhalt between north and south, east and west. Where the A 9 and the A 14 meet today at the Schkeuditzer Kreuz, two important trade routes used to intersect, the via regia and the via imperii. Today's Saxony-Anhalt was also a place for the exchange of goods and ideas, and also for the encounter of cultures. Maybe it was this friction that allowed great minds to grow there.

Until a few years ago, the Federal Republic seemed to have this legacy largely under control. For figures like Luther and Bismarck, there are large state foundations that manage their legacy in such a way that they do not become political dangerous goods. The historical-critical method ensured distance and helped to quickly let the air out of contemporary political appropriation. But for a few years now, the mythological view of history has been knocking on the door again. The supposedly fixed patterns of interpretation begin to dance again.

When Höcke greeted Emperor Otto in the haze of rain

In Saxony-Anhalt, this became clear for the first time on a cold, wet October evening in 2015, when Björn Höcke appeared on a stage in Magdeburg's old town. “I stand here and breathe history,” Höcke called out to the assembled crowd and then added in a trembling voice, looking towards the towers of the stone cathedral: “Otto, I greet you!” Höcke recalled the emperor's victory over the Magyars from the East and said that Germany should not only have a thousand-year history, but must also have a thousand-year future.

The state archaeologist Harald Meller can only smile wearily; he knows this historically significant sound. “These nationalistic interpretations come from the 19th century, when an unbroken German history with great heroes and kings was constructed almost retrospectively.” However, this has little to do with the actual processes. "Otto would have seen himself as an East Frankish king and Roman emperor, but a concept like the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation or even Germany did not yet exist at that time. The historical process is much more fractured, also due to population exchange."

Meller believes it is important to acknowledge this brokenness. "The historiography of the 19th century was dramatically uncritical. And the catastrophes of the 20th century were due not least to this misuse of history and prehistory."

Himmler and the skull cult around the king

One place where this is particularly impressive in Saxony-Anhalt is Quedlinburg Cathedral, where the remains of King Henry I, the father of Emperor Otto I, were buried in 936. After the National Socialists came to power, SS boss Heinrich Himmler showed great interest in his royal namesake, as he was considered a great butcher of the Slavs and, incorrectly, an enemy of the church.

Himmler wanted to convert Quedlinburg Cathedral into a National Socialist shrine and launched a high-pressure search for the king's missing bones. In 1937, the SS announced that they had found the king's skull, which was of "Nordic character". Meller's employees at the Halle State Museum of Prehistory are convinced that it was a play. Their recently published research suggests that the alleged royal skull actually belonged to a canoness from the 16th century.

The bones of Emperor Otto, on the other hand, are real, as has recently been proven through archaeogenetic studies. After extensive examinations and the urgently needed renovation of the sarcophagus, the emperor's bones were ceremoniously reburied on Tuesday in Magdeburg Cathedral in a new coffin made of titanium, silver and gold that was designed to last another 1,000 years.

The Saxony-Anhalt AfD faction criticized that “the bones of the founder of the German Empire” were being publicly displayed here, as if they were a “curious fossil” and not “relics of the German nation”. The extreme right's interest in historical politics remains unbroken.

State archaeologist Harald Meller, whose office is directly assigned to the State Chancellery, does not want to comment directly on the AfD. But Meller, whose contract was extended until 2030 two years ago, makes it clear that he will not give in to pressure. “If there were any influence, I would stand for freedom of research, that is my job,” explains the native of Upper Bavaria.

Given the country's dire budget situation, a future government - even if it comes from other parties - could allocate less money for the country's archeology. “The previous state governments have financed us adequately,” says Meller. "And we have repaid it. Our exhibitions in the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle are packed. And with the Nebra Sky Disk, we have strengthened Saxony-Anhalt's position on the European map."

Luther and his appropriation

Thomas T. Müller also manages a world heritage site about eighty kilometers further northeast. The 51-year-old Eichsfelder has headed the Luther Memorials Foundation in Wittenberg for three years. “I actually worked for the other side,” jokes Müller, who is Catholic and made a name for himself with research on Luther’s radical Reformation opponent Thomas Müntzer.

Müller says that the state governments in Magdeburg realized at the latest with the former Prime Ministers Wolfgang Böhmer and Reiner Haseloff as well as their State Chancellor Rainer Robra, who is highly respected in the cultural sector and is still in office today, that Saxony-Anhalt should above all proliferate with its culture. “Nowhere else can you find so many historical figures from the first category of German history in such a compressed form,” says Müller, who, in Martin Luther, also has an interpretable personality to manage.

“Luther has always offered himself up for appropriation and was mercilessly co-opted,” says Müller. "And as with Emperor Otto, the image of Luther was decisively shaped in the 19th century. At that time the question was asked: What actually is Germany and who stands for Germany?" says Müller. And the aspiring nation's searching gaze often landed on the reformer from Wittenberg. Depending on the current weather situation, Luther positioned himself against France, against the Pope, but also against the Habsburgs: a brave, Teutonic fighter against the geopolitical establishment.

At times, Luther was also held in high regard by liberals as a fighter for citizenship and freedom for citizens. “But by the second half of the 19th century at the latest, Luther was massively national conservative,” says Müller. “And I have the impression that this image of Luther has hardly changed among large parts of the population to this day.”

The big 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017, like the Luther anniversary in 1983, can be read as an attempt to use the tools of critical history to teach society some distance from the Luther myth. But under different political leadership, this development could be reversed.

However, the Luther memorials would be institutionally more difficult to crack than the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology. Müller's contract was extended early until 2033 at the suggestion of the scientific advisory board, and the federal government, the Protestant churches and the municipalities of Wittenberg and Eisleben are also at the table at the Luther Memorials Foundation.

Politics could be made with this story

An AfD-led state government could still make politics with history. The party's election program explicitly states that "from Henry I and Otto I to Luther to Bismarck and Nietzsche" the "figures who had a decisive influence on Germany" came from Saxony-Anhalt. In view of this abundance, the aim is to initiate a “new, national self-confidence” “by involving schools, through new patriotic tourism concepts, by awarding prizes and by holding commemorative events”. As part of the planned new state claim “#deutschdenken”, families are to receive a “Pride Pass” that allows free access to castles, palaces and museums.

A state government would have a wealth of other options: for example, it could organize a large conference with Russian historians on the Tauroggen Convention in 1812. The military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, who was born in Burg near Magdeburg, took part as a Russian negotiator. Or a series of lectures could be organized in order to free the Röcken-born philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche from the interpretative clutches of the French postmodern thinkers and instead to focus more on Nietzsche's history of impact in Germany, where the philosopher unleashed a disinhibition and grandiosity in intellectual life in the decades after his death.

However, the local Nietzsche Association in Röcken, the Nietzsche Society in Naumburg or the Friedrich Nietzsche Foundation are unlikely to submit to such a reinterpretation policy without complaint. The same applies to the Clausewitz Society, which is led by German officers with high positions in NATO.

But the cyclist may not descend that deep into history when he cycles on his e-bike along the new “Road of the German Empire” envisioned by the AfD and meets another personality from German history on every stage. With such rankings, the image of history in the minds of citizens can be significantly determined. Since the first half of the 19th century, such lines have been diligently drawn from Luther and Frederick the Great to Bismarck. This line was later extended to Hitler, but this immediately turned into its opposite after the war.

The state elections in Saxony-Anhalt will take place on September 6, 2026.

Thomas T. Müller recalls the powerful book “The Wrong Way of a Nation” by the later GDR cultural official Alexander Abusch from 1945. At that time, Abusch drew a line from Luther to Hitler in the form of a misery theory. “Luther created the German subject, which continued over the following centuries up to Hitler,” explains Müller. However, Luther's opponent Thomas Müntzer, who was instead made into a national hero in the GDR, seemed all the brighter. “Müntzer became totally politically overloaded as a result,” explains Thomas T. Müller.

In addition to Wittenberg, you would probably also spend at least one overnight stay near Schönhausen an der Elbe on the “Road of the German Empire”. Otto von Bismarck was born there in 1815, whose family had lived in the region since the 16th century. “The Bismarcks were just one of many Altmark noble families – nothing big,” explains Ulf Morgenstern, the managing director of the Otto von Bismarck Foundation.

Of all the interviewees, the Dresden-born historian can probably look forward to the election date in Saxony-Anhalt on September 6th with the most calmness. “We are an island of the federal government here,” explains Morgenstern, because the Bismarck Foundation is one of the seven political memorial foundations that are linked to the Chancellery via the Minister of State for Culture. The members of the Board of Trustees are appointed by the Federal President.

The SED leadership had the Bismarck mansion blown up

And the federal island in Schönhausen on the Elbe will be significantly enlarged and expanded in the coming years. The chairman of the board of trustees is the former SPD budget politician Johannes Kahrs, who was considered the shrewdest fundraiser in Berlin for years. He demonstrated this talent again at the Bismarck Foundation: The foundation, whose headquarters are in Friedrichsruh in Schleswig-Holstein (Wilhelm I had given Bismarck the Saxon Forest there), has gained ten additional positions. In addition, a modern museum is being set up in a dilapidated barn in Schönhausen. The historic Bismarck mansion was blown up by the NVA in 1958 on the instructions of the GDR government.

Morgenstern reports that there are still conflicting views among the local population about this brutal act. The relationship with the Bismarck family is also strained. The heirs of the first Reich Chancellor won a restitution process in 2016. The process left some question marks, as numerous inherited items soon found themselves in the catalogs of major auction houses. As a result, some walls of the previous Bismarck exhibition in Schönhausen were suddenly empty.

Bismarck's dogs - a separate field of research

In front of the door of the small museum, which is housed in the unexploded side wing of the mansion, Morgenstern meets its director, Sabine Mangold-Will. The historian leads a golden dachshund on a leash, which she also goes hunting with.

Bismarck also owned a dachshund for hunting, says Mangold-Will. But his passion was primarily for his mastiffs, which were also considered the “Reich Dog” during his time in office. “The chairwoman of the Great Dane Association was here just the other day,” says Mangold-Will, reporting that an entire field of research has developed around Bismarck’s dogs. “Bismarck was crucial for the pet boom among the bourgeoisie, because previously only aristocrats or students had dogs.”

The exhibits in the museum bear witness to the population's otherwise close ties to Bismarck. The most bizarre is a cap made from a dead hedgehog, whose sad eyes peer over the peak, while its spikes are supposed to stick out from the top of the Chancellor's head.