Local politics | Freiberg is preparing for the election campaign

Freiberg's mayor Philipp Preißler on a tour of the city in spring. In the meantime he is no longer visible in the city or town hall. Photo: dpa/Sebastian Willnow The new year will begin with a happy event for Freiberg in Saxony. At the New Year's reception on January 8th, the writer Sabine Ebert will be presented with honorary citizenship. The 68-year-old made the mountain town known to an audience of millions far beyond the borders of Saxony with her saga about the midwife Marthe, it was said. Ebert is the first woman ever to receive this honor in Freiberg.

When Ebert personally took her to some of the settings for her historical novels on a literary tour of the city last spring, a man walked by her side, whose political fate will also be decided in January 2027: Mayor Philipp Preißler. The 41-year-old was elected town hall boss in October 2025, but was only able to take office at the end of June 2026 due to an objection to the election and a subsequent lawsuit. Four months later, the city council decided that Preißler should lose it again. With two abstentions, 32 of 34 members voted to initiate a recall process, significantly more than the required three quarters. On January 31st, the citizens have the final say.

The reason why the head of the town hall should be removed from office is the fact that he has not held office for months. Shortly after the swearing in, Preißler went on vacation. At the beginning of August, the police in Leipzig reported about a man who was said to have rioted in a hotel, thrown objects out of the window, attacked officers and slightly injured two of them. When it turned out that it was the mayor of Freiberg, the district office prohibited him from conducting official business and disciplinary proceedings were later initiated. Little is known about the background to Preißler's freak outburst. It is unclear whether health problems were the trigger. The investigators do not comment, citing personal rights. The mayor himself went into hiding.

“The mayor's representative is doing three jobs right now. You can’t keep it up in the long run.”

His silence for months finally persuaded the Free Voters to request that he be voted out. A statement from Preißler is “long overdue”; His behavior "calls into question his suitability for the office," it was said. Ironically, it was the Free Voters who nominated Preißler as mayoral candidate. He had previously been the office manager of Sven Krüger, the town hall boss who had been in office since 2015, who was elected district administrator of Central Saxony and moved from the Freiberg town hall to the district administration on May 1, 2026.

Freiberg's local politics are not idle despite Preißler's absence. The administration works “well-coordinated and smoothly,” says building mayor Martin Seltmann, who took up the post in 2023 and has also acted as the mayor’s representative almost continuously since Krüger’s departure. Because Krüger once abolished the office of financial representative and assigned the tasks to the mayor, "he practically does three jobs," says Jana Pinka, city councilor for the Freiberg for All Alliance. "You can't keep that up in the long run." She also notes that the elected mayor Preißler receives full salary despite his absence. The head of the town hall in Freiberg, which has a population of around 41,000, is paid at salary level B5, which in Saxony corresponds to around 11,500 euros per month without surcharges.

At the end of January, citizens can decide whether this situation should be ended. However, the hurdles are extremely high. Not only does there have to be a majority for Preißler's deselection. The number of those voting for deselection must also correspond to at least half of those eligible to vote. This is how the Saxon municipal code regulates it. In the second round of the mayoral election in October 2025, 30,245 citizens would have been allowed to vote; The quorum for Preißler's impeachment would therefore be a good 15,100 votes. That would be more than twice as many as the 7,125 votes that were enough for him to win against three competitors, including Christian Pudack, who was nominated by Freiberg for everyone and who ended up second place. A total of only 15,564 Freibergers took part in the election at that time.

In order to have any chance of ending the drama at the top of the city, one must strive for an unusually high voter turnout, says Pinka. It won't be easy on a Sunday in winter when no other choice could encourage citizens to go to the polls. "We have to prepare ourselves for a recall campaign," says the city councilor, pointing out a bitter irony: apart from the Free Voters, most parties and voter associations now have to invest a lot of money and energy to get rid of a man who they didn't want to see in office in the first place.

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