The ARD summer interview with AfD leader Chrupalla in a fact-check

AfD Chairman: Fact-checking the Interview with Chrupalla

AfD chairman Chrupalla appeared on ARD's summer interview programme. Many of his statements hold up to scrutiny. However, he was wrong on the topic of climate change, and several statements on migration were also false.

The ARD summer interview and subsequent questions from the community with AfD chairman Tino Chrupalla focused primarily on climate change and the upcoming election in Saxony-Anhalt.

Since it is not always possible to correct false or misleading claims immediately during such a conversation, some of Chrupalla's statements are examined here in greater detail.

Chrupalla speaks of a "completely normal summer"

When the discussion turned to climate change and its consequences for Germany, Chrupalla said it had been "a completely normal summer" for him. "Yes, there were dry spells, and there were also long rainy periods," said Chrupalla. This is incorrect in several respects.

For one thing, this year's summer in Germany has been significantly warmer than usual: June recorded a mean temperature of 19.5 degrees, making it the second warmest June since regular weather records began. According to the EU's Copernicus climate monitoring programme, June and July were the hottest on record in Western Europe since measurements began. The average temperature in the region, which includes Germany, was 21.62 degrees during that period — 2.79 degrees above the long-term reference value for 1991 to 2020.

According to the German Weather Service (DWD), there were also no prolonged rainy periods this year: "Since March, rainfall has been below average across almost all of Germany. Particularly low rainfall was recorded from the Palatinate and Rheinhessen through to Lower Franconia, where widespread totals of less than 150 litres per square metre (l/m²) were recorded. In some parts of the south, rainfall amounted to less than half the long-term average for the years 1991 to 2020."

This year's heatwave is also reflected in health statistics. According to the Robert Koch Institute, the first seven months of this year have already seen more heat-related deaths than in any single complete year previously recorded.

False figures on people subject to deportation orders

On the topic of migration, Chrupalla stated that in the summer of 2025 there were one million rejected asylum applications. He also claimed there were "280,000 people in this country who don't even have a residence permit and who should be deported."

The federal government's response to a parliamentary question from an AfD member of parliament does indeed show that as of 31 December 2025, a total of 930,395 rejected asylum seekers were living in Germany.

However, how meaningful this figure actually is remains questionable. In its response, the federal government itself notes "that a rejected asylum application is generally not deleted from the Central Foreigners Register (AZR), meaning the underlying asylum decision may date back many years and the individual may have since acquired the right of residence by other means." An asylum rejection recorded in the AZR alone therefore does not mean that the person in question has no right of residence.

Furthermore, it is unclear what Chrupalla means by people "without a residence permit." If one assumes he is referring to people subject to a deportation order, the figure of 280,000 he cited is simply not accurate.

A response to a minor interpellation submitted by, among others, The Left party reveals that according to the Central Register of Foreigners, as of the reference date of June 30, 2026, a total of 258,845 persons were required to leave the country. However, 199,271 of these persons hold a Duldung — a temporary suspension of deportation. This can be issued for reasons such as family circumstances, illness, or lack of documents. The claim that as many as 280,000 people in Germany "should be deported" is therefore false.

No concrete evidence for postal vote manipulation in care homes

In his arguments regarding alleged postal vote manipulation, Chrupalla repeatedly cited reports from members of the public without providing any concrete evidence to support them. When asked about postal vote manipulations in care homes in Saxony-Anhalt that the AfD had alleged, the 51-year-old said he could name specific examples but would not do so. By way of explanation, Chrupalla said he was unable to verify the alleged incidents. In his view, however, it was "indisputable" that such cases had occurred.

His claim that he himself cannot file a criminal complaint because he was not present is, however, incorrect. Under Section 158 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a criminal offence can be reported to the public prosecutor's office, the police, or a local court. The provision does not require that the person filing the report was a witness to the act.

Research shows that in the past there have been isolated cases of electoral manipulation involving postal votes. For example, in 2010 in Wietze, the operator of a care home allegedly bribed residents with cigarettes in exchange for certain votes. In another case in Bavaria, a former mayor is alleged to have manipulated postal ballot documents. In Stendal, a former city councillor forged hundreds of proxy voting authorisations in order to obtain postal ballot materials.

Such cases show that postal voting is vulnerable to manipulation in individual instances. However, electoral researcher Eric Linhart of Chemnitz University of Technology comments: "There are no indications whatsoever that there is any structural manipulation of postal voting." While individual cases can never be entirely ruled out, large-scale manipulation is inconceivable. Linhart sees the greatest risk of influence as occurring rather within families — for example, through an authoritarian head of household.

Laws such as state electoral regulations stipulate that postal ballot materials must be stored securely. With regard to the upcoming state election in Saxony-Anhalt, the relevant legislation states: "The municipalities shall collect the [...] ballot letters unopened and keep them under lock and key. It must be ensured that unauthorised persons have no access to the contents of the container [...]. These ballot letters should also be collected during the day in a closed container or lockable room, and in any case kept under the constant supervision of an official."

Nothdurft has not publicly distanced himself

When the subject of extremists within the AfD arose, Chrupalla stated that AfD politician Laurens Nothdurft had distanced himself from his time as a member of the Heimattreue Deutsche Jugend (HDJ). However, there is no publicly documented statement by Nothdurft to this effect.

Nothdurft was elected second federal leader of the HDJ in 1999. In 2009, the neo-Nazi youth organization was banned because it "directed itself in an aggressively combative manner against the constitutional order or its activities violated criminal law."

Nothdurft worked briefly in 2019 as a legal counsel for the AfD parliamentary group in the Bavarian state parliament. The parliamentary group parted ways with him due to his neo-Nazi past. Since then, Nothdurft has been legal counsel for the AfD parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt and represented the party's candidate for minister-president, Ulrich Siegmund, in court.

According to the AfD's federal constitution, membership in the HDJ is incompatible with membership in the AfD. Accordingly, persons who were members of an organization on the AfD's incompatibility list "can only become members of the party if they disclose this in their membership application and the responsible state executive board votes in favor of admission with a two-thirds majority of its members following an individual case review."

Whether such an individual case review and vote took place in Nothdurft's case is unclear — however, a public distancing by Nothdurft, as claimed, did not occur.

State spending ratio does not describe the proportion of civil servants in the public sector

With regard to civil servants, Chrupalla said the state spending ratio was far too high and needed to be reduced. However, he uses the term misleadingly, as the state spending ratio does not describe the proportion of civil servants in the public sector. It measures the share of all government expenditure as a proportion of gross domestic product. Such expenditure includes, for example, social benefits and pensions. In a European comparison, Germany ranked in the middle in 2024 with a state spending ratio of 49.5 percent.

The absolute number of civil servants in Germany has been rising for years — according to the Federal Statistical Office by 5.5 percent from 2014 (approximately 1.8 million) to 2024 (approximately 2 million). However, the number of civil servants is growing less rapidly than the total number of public sector employees: this increased by 15.6 percent over the same period (from 4.65 million to 5.38 million). This means the proportion of civil servants in the public sector has declined. In 2015, approximately 39.6 percent of public sector employees held civil servant status — in 2024, this figure was around 36.4 percent. The majority of civil servants (35.6 percent) work in schools.

Contributors: Eva Kohn, Sabrina Ladenburger, Luis Stuhlfelder, WDR