NPD cadre as advocates: How far to the right can a district administrator get help?

Göttingen.Two days before the local elections, the Göttingen district is shown how quietly the border is now moving to the right. In an almost 50-minute YouTube video that appeared on Wednesday evening, the suspended district administrator Marcel Riethig promotes his renewed candidacy - and is accepted by, of all people, a man who admitted to the Göttinger Tageblatt that he used to be a member of the NPD.

Who did the research – and who didn’t

What is remarkable is where the knowledge comes from. It was not the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, not the district administration, not the State Security that made the man's background public. It was thatGöttingen Antifascist Education Center and Archives– the self-organized structure that has been documenting for decades what government agencies prefer to overlook. The left-wing candidate Nina Lauterbach calls their research “more than disturbing”. We would add: The fact that anti-fascist archival work will still have to fill the gap that the authorities are leaving open in 2026 is what is actually worrying.

What happens in the video

The former NPD cadre appears several times in the video as an advocate for Riethig's administration. He mixes personal impressions with serious accusations against employees of the district administration and uses vocabulary such as “Little Palermo” and “mafia structures” – terms that the SPD candidate Ulrike Witt expressly criticizes. Your criticism hits one point: “Anyone who emphasizes the rule of law and the presumption of innocence must not express any prejudgment.” According to Witt, the video is silent about the basis of the allegations.

Riethig had a spokesman for the BLG voter initiative deny any political connection to the man. The man himself declared through his lawyer that he had broken away from the right-wing extremist scene. Both may be true. It doesn't answer the question that remains in the room.

Six candidates, one demand

The reactions range across the democratic spectrum. CDU candidate Harm Adam calls it “highly problematic that Riethig is publicly supported by a former NPD cadre of all people” and calls for “clear and unmistakable distancing – not at some point, but now.” Green Party member Pippa Schneider calls it “very irritating” and asks “where he stands politically.” Volt candidate Till Jonas Hampe puts it for what it is: “As an anti-fascist and, above all, as a citizen of the district, I demand that the context be clarified.” WLG candidate Harald Wegener mocks Riethig’s lack of “care in choosing his advocates”.

Hampe says another sentence that sticks: he is dismayed, “but not surprised.” Riethig’s appearance “also appeals to a right-wing extremist audience”. That's the core. The question is not whether Riethig himself shares NPD positions - but rather that a suspended incumbent is apparently not afraid of contact during the election campaign if support comes from the right.

Why this is more than just a personality

It would be convenient to dismiss this as a side note of an already battered election campaign - Riethig has been suspended from duty since spring 2026, disciplinary proceedings are ongoing, nothing has been resolved. But the personnel is a symptom. If a former NPD official is blatantly given a platform in a municipal election campaign, then this is exactly the kind of creeping normalization that we have been warning about for years: the extreme right is not pushing back into the institutions with torches, but rather as an “advocate,” as a concerned citizen, as someone who has supposedly “broken away.” In the same week that two left-wing shops burn in Göttingen, this is no coincidence. It's the same climate.

Elections will take place on September 13th. Anyone who not only wants to manage democracy, but also protect it - to paraphrase Lauterbach - should look very closely at who is being handed the microphones.