Huge Leak | Hacker attack on AfD: Hundreds of thousands of emails published

The hackers explain that it involves data from ten mailboxes, including an account in the name of former AfD party leader Alexander Gauland. Photo: dpa/Philipp von Ditfurth Berlin. According to the AfD, data from the party's email accounts was allegedly stolen in a hacker attack. "In September 2026, there was a hacker attack on one of our party's hosting service providers, in which parts of a few mailboxes - most of which had not been used for years - were apparently illegally copied," said the AfD upon request. The newspaper “Bild” had previously reported. Current email inboxes of the AfD federal association were not affected.

According to their own statements, unknown persons published data on the Internet, which is said to be around 421,000 AfD emails. It is unclear whether these are authentic or not - but there is much to suggest that they are.

The hackers explain that it involves data from ten mailboxes, including an account in the name of former AfD party leader Alexander Gauland and an account that was previously named by the AfD as a contact for the federal office.

After initial sightings, the media reported copies of ID cards, bank statements, invoices and certificates, and membership applications and membership lists from AfD district associations in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as a photo of the ID card of AfD deputy parliamentary group leader Markus Frohnmaier were also found.

There is a link circulating on the Internet to a website called hexane.cc, which provides an overview of the alleged AfD emails. According to dpa research, the anonymous site was only registered in mid-October. It does not provide any information about the origin of the data and does not publish any email content. These should be available on another download server as a so-called torrent link.

The AfD further stated that the attack was quickly recognized and stopped. All users were informed accordingly. “The online publication of probably part of this data is being examined,” it said. An initial assessment can only be made after this test has been completed. dpa/nd

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