AfD leak: internal concerns about financial consequences

Exclusive AfD leak The internal concern about financial consequences As of: November 7th, 2026 • 6:00 a.m

Who is responsible for the AfD leak? According to NDR and WDR, the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania regional association is demanding that the federal party bear possible costs from legal disputes.

Concern is growing within the AfD that the AfD leak could also have financial consequences. In addition to the fact that the AfD's internal party processes are now understandable to the public, it is still completely unclear what legal consequences could arise for the AfD.

After all, the data from the AfD leak contains, for example, the list of members of the entire AfD in North Rhine-Westphalia and much other highly sensitive information. This also includes thousands of personal data such as the private addresses of first-time voters, which were queried in connection with the state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

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The AfD regional association in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania therefore fears “significant data protection consequences,” as it says in a letter from local treasurer Martin Schmidt, which is available to NDR and WDR. This is a motion that is addressed to the party's convention - the body that deals with the political and organizational issues of the federal party and meets on Saturday.

Also addressed is the party's federal treasurer, Hannes Gnauck - and there is a reason for that. Specifically, the state association of the AfD in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is demanding that the federal party release the state association from any claims that could possibly arise from the leak. According to the letter, the regional association fears, among other things, fines, official penalties, claims for damages, court costs and legal fees.

“The first lawsuit groups have already been founded and the state data protection officer of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is already signaling the seriousness of these circumstances,” the letter says.

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When asked, the data protection officer for Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania confirmed that he had initiated an investigation, but that it was still in its early stages. Well-informed officials in the party expect that if the application is successful in the convention, other federal states could join.

Schmidt's letter also contains an interesting detail on the sensitive question within the party of who might have caused the leak, which is currently still the subject of internal investigations. It is not expedient for the regional association to have to pay a fine for “using the service of the in-house IT infrastructure in loyalty to the federal party,” according to the application to the convention.

It also becomes clear who the Mecklenburg AfD sees as responsible for this leak occurring in the first place: "It is crucial that, in our opinion, the cause of the incident does not lie in any independent misconduct by the state association, but in fundamental deficiencies in the IT security architecture and the technical infrastructure of the federal association and its companies."

When asked, the state association did not want to comment on the letter and the federal party also did not want to comment on internal party processes. But internally, since the data leak became known, different camps have been blaming each other. Parts of the party leadership have repeatedly pointed out that the cause may not be in the federal IT infrastructure, but in North Rhine-Westphalia, where some mailboxes are also affected.

A power struggle has been raging between the federal executive board around Alice Weidel and the NRW state leader for months. Martin Vincentz, the state chairman of the AfD in North Rhine-Westphalia, reacts immediately to such suspicions: "I can only strongly reject that. The service provider is a wholly owned subsidiary of the federal AfD, that's where our data was and that's where the vulnerability was," said Vincentz when asked by NDR and WDR. How much individual officials from North Rhine-Westphalia had in their mailboxes is not the responsibility of the state association.

Around two weeks ago, unknown hackers published the leak containing 281 gigabytes of data. Since then, around 420,000 emails and almost 50,000 documents have been available for download on the Internet. The AfD has confirmed parts of the leak. The federal office informed members about the hacker attack in an internal letter on Tuesday two weeks ago.

This topic in the program: tagesschau.de | AfD leak: internal party concerns | Nov 7, 2026 | 06:00 am