# Robert Teske

# Robert Teske

Robert Teske (born 8 March 1990 in Brandenburg an der Havel) is a German politician of [the Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany (AfD) and a member of the Bundestag since 25 March 2025. The snap election to the 21st Bundestag was held on 23 February 2025. Teske won the direct mandate in constituency 195, Suhl – Schmalkalden-Meiningen – Hildburghausen – Sonneberg in southern Thuringia, with 73,608 first votes, or 42.1 percent.

In the biography he supplied to the Bundestag, Teske records an Abitur in 2010 at the Gymnasium Osterholz-Scharmbeck in Lower Saxony, a 2010–2013 apprenticeship in Bremen as a clerk for freight forwarding and logistics services, and employment with a forwarding firm from 2014 to 2018. The same self-reported note says he has been an AfD member since 2014. Before the move into paid work for the Thuringian party, he chaired the Bremen branch of the Young [Alternative for Germany](/organizations/alternative-for-germany). In June 2017 the Berlin daily *taz* reported that Teske and his deputy, Marvin Mergard, had marched in the capital beside supporters of the Identitarian Movement Germany, after Teske had told another paper that an incompatibility resolution meant he had no contacts with that movement.

From 2019 to 2025 he was an employee of the AfD group in the Thuringian Landtag, again according to the parliamentary biography. Agency copy published by *[Die Welt](/organizations/die-welt)* and the *Süddeutsche Zeitung* described him at the time of the federal election as office manager to Björn Höcke, the Thuringian AfD parliamentary leader, and as a trained forwarding clerk. MDR likewise identified him as Höcke's office manager and reported that a regional AfD meeting had nominated him as the constituency candidate on 7 December. His Bundestag biography lists, from 2024, seats on the executive of the AfD district association Mittelthüringen, on the AfD state executive in Thuringia, and on the city council of Erfurt. In the 2024 Thuringian state election he had stood for a direct mandate in the Kyffhäuserkreis and lost.

In constituency 195 the runner-up was Erik Thürmer of the [Christian Democratic Union](/organizations/christian-democratic-union-of-germany), with 19.4 percent of the first votes; turnout was 80.1 percent, and the AfD received 43.1 percent of the second votes. MDR reported that [Frank Ullrich](/people/frank-ullrich) of the Social Democratic Party, who had held the seat, did not stand again. The agency reports noted that a plurality in a constituency produced a Bundestag seat in 2025 only when the winner's party had sufficient second votes, and that Teske's mandate met that test. They also recorded that the Thuringian AfD had for years been classified by the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a confirmed right-wing extremist grouping and kept under observation. In the 21st Bundestag he is a full member of the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs and a substitute member of the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly. The news site t-online reported in 2025 that from April he employed the [New Right](/organizations/new-right) publicist Benedikt Kaiser, whom the article described as a former participant in the neo-Nazi scene, as a research assistant in his parliamentary office; Teske told the site that hiring Kaiser, whom he had known for several years, had been a "logical consequence".

## Early life and professional background

### Childhood and education

Robert Teske was born on 8 March 1990 in Brandenburg an der Havel, according to the member biography published by the [German Bundestag](/organizations/german-bundestag). The parliament notes that these biographical entries rest on the members' own statements, and the same date and birthplace appear in the structured data on that page. An official notice in the *Amtsblatt* of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, dated 3 August 2017 and setting out candidates admitted for that year's federal election, recorded him only as born in 1990 in "Brandenburg/Havel," without a day. In a profile published on 22 August 2024, the *Thüringer Allgemeine* described the then 34-year-old as a native of Brandenburg ("gebürtiger Brandenburger"). The place named in the biography is the independent city (*kreisfreie Stadt*) of Brandenburg an der Havel; the state government of Brandenburg carries the city's coat of arms on its municipal-directory service.

*The Gymnasium Osterholz-Scharmbeck, the secondary school named in Teske's Bundestag biography.*

Those sources do not name parents, siblings, a spouse, children, or any other relatives, and they do not say when he left the city of his birth. The only published account of his schooling is the Bundestag biography's statement that he passed the *Abitur* in 2010 at the Gymnasium Osterholz-Scharmbeck. The school gives its address as Loger Straße 7 in Osterholz-Scharmbeck, the seat of the district of Osterholz. The district administration describes the *Landkreis* as lying directly outside the city of Bremen, and the interior ministry of Lower Saxony lists Osterholz among the state's districts. No public biography records a primary school, a year of enrolment, or whether his household lived in Osterholz-Scharmbeck throughout his childhood.

### Freight-forwarding work

The same self-reported biography states that from 2010 to 2013 he trained in Bremen as a *Kaufmann für Spedition und Logistikdienstleistung* (freight-forwarding and logistics clerk) and that from 2014 to 2018 he was an employee of a freight-forwarding firm (*Spedition*). Under the federal training ordinance, that occupation is a recognized apprenticeship lasting three years, the length of the period he reports. The biography does not name the firm that trained him or the firm that later employed him, and no independent report identifies either employer.

The 2017 *Amtsblatt* entry is consistent with the occupation and with residence in Bremen at that date: it listed him as a *Speditionskaufmann*, living in Bremen (*wohnhaft in Bremen*), on a state list of the Alternative for Germany. Abgeordnetenwatch, drawing on disclosures connected with his later membership of the Bundestag, gives the same professional qualification and records Erfurt as his place of residence. The Bundestag text dates the change to paid political employment at 2019, when he became a staff member of the AfD group in the Landtag of Thuringia, a post it says lasted until 2025; the 2024 newspaper profile described the role as that of office manager from 2019. Between the 2017 Bremen residence and the later Erfurt address, published biographies supply neither a continuous residential history nor a family address, and they leave the logistics employer unnamed.

## Political beginnings in Bremen

### Junge Alternative Bremen

Robert Teske has been a member of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) since 2014, according to the biography published by the German Bundestag. In Bremen, on a Sunday afternoon in October 2016, a state branch of the Young Alternative for Germany (Junge Alternative, JA) was founded at the inn Zum Grünen Jäger in Bremen-Farge; the *Weser-Kurier* reported the meeting on 19 October. Sven Tritschler, then the JA’s federal chairman, said Bremen was the last state in Germany without one. Teske, a 26-year-old forwarding clerk, was elected chairman, and Marvin Mergard, an AfD spokesman on the Vegesack advisory council, deputy. The interior authorities noted the Farge venue. Max Wengel, of the counselling centre pro aktiv gegen rechts, said his office classified the JA, as in his account the interior authority did, as right-wing populist, and that the youth organisation was more radical than the AfD. The state domestic-intelligence service later dated the branch to October 2016.

### AfD Bremen and the 2017 candidacy

At the Bundestag election of 24 September 2017 Teske stood second on the Bremen AfD list, behind Frank Magnitz and ahead of Alexander Tassis, the order printed in the final tables of the Statistical Office of Bremen. He was not a constituency candidate. The AfD received 33,244 second votes, 10.00 percent. Of the six members the office records as elected from the state, the party’s only seat went to Magnitz on the list. Teske was not elected.

During the campaign, *taz* reported that on the Tuesday before its weekend edition of 19 August 2017, Magnitz, Teske and Mergard handed out Identitarian leaflets headed “Asylmissbrauch stoppen” at a Bremen appearance by Chancellor [Angela Merkel](/people/angela-merkel). Teske said Jonas Schick, an Identitarian activist and former AfD member, had given him the leaflet, and that there had been no joint action.

In December 2017 about 40 members at a state congress in Bremerhaven elected Teske second deputy state chairman, Mergard secretary and Jens Schäfer an assessor. Teske wrote on the JA Facebook page that he would work “für unser Vaterland und unsere Heimat Bremen” and that three JA members gave the board “eine kraftvolle Stimme der Jugend.” *taz* called the phrasing reminiscent of Identitarian rhetoric and noted members who had described the Bremen executive as “zu rechts.”

### Observation and Identitarian contacts

In the summer of 2016 the AfD and the JA each resolved against cooperation with the Identitarian Movement Germany. The JA text, quoted by *taz*, said the movement could “infiltrate other organisations and influence them in a targeted way.” On 17 June 2017 Teske and Mergard nevertheless marched in Berlin in a demonstration of the movement. *taz* on 21 June put the crowd at about 800, among them figures from Pegida.

About three months earlier, *taz* reported, Teske had told the *Weser-Kurier* that the incompatibility declaration was being applied and that he had no such contacts. *taz* wrote that he nevertheless posed, on the Facebook page of the label Phalanx Europa (“Kleidung von Identitären für Identitäre”), in an Identitarian T-shirt, and that he and Mergard used “der große Austausch” online—language *taz* called racist combat terminology, quoting the movement’s sense of a displacement of the native population by foreigners, “mostly Muslim immigrants.” Mergard replied that functionaries must not act as stewards or speakers, but that attending was still covered by the right to demonstrate. Krzysztof Walczak, a deputy federal JA chairman, said that if the report was accurate the march breached the resolutions and would be investigated. In August *taz* wrote that no consequence had followed, and that the two still called such appearances private.

On 4 July 2017 the Bremen Senate, answering the Left group in the Bürgerschaft of Bremen, confirmed *Weser-Kurier* and Radio Bremen reports of 22 June that JA functionaries had joined that demonstration. It said the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution knew of contacts between activists of the Identitarian Movement Bremen—which the Senate called a right-wing extremist grouping and an object of observation—and members of the AfD and the JA. The bearing of those contacts on the JA was still under review.

The branch was not itself observed until the following year. On 3 September 2018 Interior Senator Ulrich Mäurer said he had ordered the review in 2017 and that observation had run since the previous week: “The messages of this group are in part pure racism.” Dierk Schittkowski, head of the office, spoke of “actual indications that this is a right-wing extremist endeavour,” citing links to the Identitarian Movement Bremen, support by JA leaders for that group or adoption of its slogans, and racist posts, including a May 2018 text calling refugees “nutzlos,” “kriminell” and “gesellschaftlicher Bodensatz.” Publication waited on a search that day of a JA member’s premises in a *Volksverhetzung* case. The statement named Teske as JA chairman and deputy AfD state chairman at once, and Mäurer said the overlap meant the Bremen AfD itself was now under review for observation. In December 2018 the state executive urged the JA to dissolve “aufgrund der Beobachtung durch den Verfassungsschutz.” Teske refused; the branch replied that the advice was “dankend abgelehnt.”

## Work in the Thuringian parliamentary group

### Landtag staff

From 2019 to 2025 Robert Teske was a staff member of the parliamentary group of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the Landtag of Thuringia, based in Erfurt. The Bundestag biography that records those years states that biographical entries rest on the members' own information. Mandatory disclosures on the same page, published under the rules of conduct for members, list two occupations before his Bundestag membership: office manager (*Büroleiter*) of the AfD group in Erfurt, and constituency aide (*Wahlkreismitarbeiter*) to Daniel Haseloff, identified there as a member of the Thuringian Landtag, also in Erfurt. The published entries do not state how long either post lasted. Haseloff, of the AfD, has been a Landtag member since 2024 and general secretary of the Thuringian AfD since the same year.

*Björn Höcke and Robert Teske at a public appearance.*

Contemporary reporting described the group job as work for its chairman, Björn Höcke, rather than as an undifferentiated staff post. In February 2025 the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, in a dispatch carried unedited by the *Süddeutsche Zeitung*, called Teske the current office manager of Thuringia's AfD Landtag group leader and, in a caption, Höcke's "right hand" in the state. Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk used the same office-manager title and identified Höcke both as chairman of the Landtag group and as co-spokesperson of the state party. The agency's "currently" placed him in the post at the February 2025 federal election; the Bundestag biography ends the group employment in 2025.

The *Thüringer Allgemeine* reported on 22 August 2024 that the state party leader had placed Teske in the office-manager post in 2019. Teske told the paper that he had come to Thuringia through personal contact with Höcke, including at events of Der Flügel, a grouping inside the AfD that the paper described as situated on the far right and by then dissolved. Speaking during his 2024 Landtag candidacy, he said he had not resigned and was working on the state party's campaign; the paper wrote that he would not treat remaining office manager as a demotion if he did not enter the Landtag. In June 2025 *t-online* described a six-year tenure in which, it wrote, he accompanied Höcke to appointments in the Landtag and elsewhere, coordinated campaign appearances, and either kept the press away or arranged conversations. The article reported a remark Teske made in the film *Der lange Anlauf*: that Höcke was the only politician in the party for whom he could work out of conviction.

For most of that employment, the state party in whose Landtag group he worked was under classification by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution for Thuringia. The classification concerns the state association, not a published finding about Teske. In May 2021 *[Der Spiegel](/organizations/der-spiegel)* and *Die Welt* reported that the office's president, Stephan Kramer, had put a "gesichert extremistisch" (confirmed extremist) classification formally into effect in mid-March 2021. *Die Welt* reported that a paper discussed in the state cabinet referred to "efforts against the free democratic basic order," and that the office had treated the association as a suspected case (*Verdachtsfall*) since March 2020. In February 2025 the press agency summarised the office's continuing position as classifying and observing the Thuringian AfD as "erwiesen rechtsextremistisch" (proven right-wing extremist).

### Party offices in Thuringia

The Bundestag biography, again marked as the member's own information, states that from 2024 Teske belonged to the district executive (*Kreisvorstand*) of the AfD's Mittelthüringen district association and to the state executive (*Landesvorstand*) of the AfD in Thuringia. From 2024 those party offices ran alongside the group staff post, which the same biography carries through 2025.

The state association's website lists him on that executive as an assessor (*Beisitzer*) responsible for organisation. The website of Kreisverband Erfurt states that members met in Erfurt on 14 September 2024 to elect a board for two years and names Teske as deputy treasurer (*stellvertretender Schatzmeister*); the page titles the body Kreisverband Erfurt, while the donation account it publishes is held in the name "AfD KV-Mittelthueringen," the designation used in the Bundestag biography.

## State and municipal candidacies

### 2024 Thuringian state election

On 1 September 2024 Teske was the Alternative for Germany (AfD) candidate in constituency 10, Kyffhäuserkreis I, at the [2024 Thuringian state election](/facts/2024-thuringian-state-election). The constituency is the western part of the Kyffhäuserkreis and includes Sondershausen. The state returning officer's candidate list of 15 July 2024 named him for the AfD. The other nominees were [Donata Vogtschmidt](/people/donata-vogtschmidt) ([Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke)), Stefan Schard (Christian Democratic Union of Germany), Alexandra Wallrodt ([Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany)), Jürgen Rauschenbach (Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens)), Leon-Rob Diekneite (Free Democratic Party (Germany)) and the independent Ralf Köhler.

The AfD's Kyffhäuser district association chose him at a members' meeting on 27 January 2024 and, the same day, nominated the sitting deputy Jens Cotta for Kyffhäuserkreis II. Teske lived in Erfurt and worked as office manager of the AfD group in the Landtag of Thuringia. In a *Thüringer Allgemeine* interview of 22 August 2024 he said local party friends had asked him to stand, that he had not originally meant to enter the Landtag, and that he did not rate his chance of the direct seat as the strongest, though he would campaign for votes and wanted the Sondershausen party office kept. The paper called him the "right hand" of Björn Höcke, leader of a state branch it described as classified right-wing extremist by the domestic intelligence service. Teske said that if the AfD gained a decisive role in the Landtag, Thuringia should become the first state in which immigration was "extremely unattractive", and that the message should be that foreigners were unwanted.

Schard, a lawyer from Sondershausen who had sat in the Landtag since 2019, won the seat. In the final result, 20,470 of 29,119 eligible voters cast ballots, a turnout of 70.3 percent, 3.2 points under the statewide 73.5 percent. Of 20,127 valid constituency votes, Schard received 8,453 (42.0 percent) and Teske 7,364 (36.6 percent); Vogtschmidt took 11.3 percent, Wallrodt 6.6 percent, Köhler 1.4 percent, Diekneite 1.2 percent and Rauschenbach 1.0 percent. On the party vote the AfD led the constituency with 7,248 votes (35.7 percent), ahead of the CDU (23.7 percent), the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (17.3 percent) and Die Linke (12.1 percent), 2.9 points above the AfD's statewide 32.8 percent. Teske was not elected.

### Erfurt city council

At the municipal election of 26 May 2024 Teske stood fifth on the AfD list for the Erfurt city council. The election committee fixed the final result on 30 May, and the city published it in the *Amtsblatt* of 1 June. He received 464 votes and took one of the party's ten seats. The AfD won 58,911 of 289,086 valid votes (20.4 percent) and ten of 50 seats. Turnout was 59.2 percent, 100,530 of 169,887 eligible voters. The CDU was first with 24.8 percent and 12 seats, then the SPD (16.2 percent, eight seats), Die Linke (14.8 percent, eight), Mehrwertstadt (10.1 percent, five) and the Greens (7.5 percent, four). On 6 June the *Thüringer Allgemeine* listed Teske in the ten-member AfD group and reported that the constitutive meeting was set for 12 June.

The city register lists him as an ordinary member of the AfD group for the 2024–2029 council term. He was a deputy member of the youth-welfare committee from 14 August 2024 and, from 18 September 2024, an ordinary member of the committee for social affairs, the labour market and equality and of the committee for urban development, construction, the environment, climate protection and transport. Those appointments are recorded as ending on 30 June 2025, the same day given for the end of his council membership.

The Bundestag biography, which the parliament says rests on members' own information, still described him, on a page marked as updated on 1 November 2026, as a member of the Erfurt council "since 2024". The mandatory disclosures on that page, which Abgeordnetenwatch reproduces, instead record the council seat as ended on 30 June 2025, and a seat on the supervisory board of the Erfurter Garten- und Ausstellungs gemeinnützige GmbH (ega) in Erfurt as ended the same day. Neither the city register nor the disclosure states a reason.

## Election to the Bundestag

### Constituency and campaign

The 2025 German federal election, for the 21st Bundestag, was held on Sunday, 23 February 2025, after the Federal President dissolved the 20th Bundestag on 27 December 2024 and brought the date forward from 28 September 2025. Robert Teske was the direct candidate of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in constituency 195, Suhl – Schmalkalden-Meiningen – Hildburghausen – Sonneberg. Under the Federal Returning Officer’s delimitation, the constituency comprises the independent city of Suhl and the districts of Schmalkalden-Meiningen, Hildburghausen and Sonneberg in southern Thuringia. Until the 2021 federal election the same area had been numbered 196.

The AfD nominated Teske on 7 December 2024 at a meeting of members from the region; the party said he received a majority. He also stood fifth on the AfD state list in Thuringia. MDR described him as a freight-forwarding clerk and, since 2019, office manager to Björn Höcke, leader of the AfD group in the Thuringian Landtag, and as an Erfurt city councillor since May 2024. Frank Ullrich of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who had held the direct mandate, did not stand again. The Christian Democratic Union nominated Erik Thürmer, mayor of Kaltennordheim, on 18 December, and the SPD nominated Raimund Meß on 10 December. Also nominated were Philipp Weltzien (Die Linke), Thomas Schröder (Bündnis [Sahra Wagenknecht](/people/sahra-wagenknecht)), Andreas Hummel ([Free Voters](/organizations/free-voters)), the then Bundestag member Gerald Ullrich (Free Democratic Party), and Manfred Kröber (Alliance 90/The Greens).

On the evening of 24 January 2025, at the Gasthaus Goldener Anker in Steinach, Teske said he had passed the Abitur in 2010, trained as a freight-forwarding clerk, worked in that trade for ten years, and then spent six years on scheduling and press work for Höcke in Erfurt. He said he had only recently got to know the district and that a family in Lauscha had torn down his posters. District Administrator Robert Sesselmann (AfD) replied that, on that biography, Teske would be able to organise “remigration.” On the evening of 11 February, about 400 people attended an AfD “citizens’ dialogue” at the CCS in Suhl, where Teske was to be presented; *inSüdthüringen* reported that most had come for Höcke, who spoke for about 40 minutes. About 140 people protested nearby with flashlights on the steps at Platz der Deutschen Einheit under the slogan “Suhl bleibt hell” (“Suhl stays bright”), against what they called a rightward shift and against the AfD event.

### Result and entry into parliament

In the Federal Returning Officer’s final result, 220,067 people were eligible and 176,212 voted, a turnout of 80.1 percent, 5.7 points higher than in 2021. Of 174,860 valid first votes, Teske received 73,608, or 42.1 percent, up 20.9 points. The returning officer listed him as elected in the constituency and Thürmer as runner-up on 19.4 percent (33,940 votes, down 2.9 points). The SPD took 18,315 votes and 10.5 percent, down 23.1 points; Die Linke 18,445 votes, also 10.5 percent (up 2.2); the BSW 14,697 and 8.4 percent; the Free Voters 6,140 and 3.5 percent (up 0.6); the FDP 4,205 and 2.4 percent (down 3.9); and the Greens 2,829 and 1.6 percent (down 0.5). MDR matched those shares to Meß, Weltzien, Schröder, Hummel, Gerald Ullrich and the Greens’ candidate, with 1.1 percent for the independent Andreas Papst and 0.2 percent for Andreas Eifler of the Marxist-Leninist Party.

On second votes the AfD led with 75,406 and 43.1 percent, up 16.7 points, ahead of the CDU on 17.5 percent (up 1.0), Die Linke on 12.5 percent (up 1.6), the BSW on 10.1 percent and the SPD on 8.3 percent (down 16.8).

A first-vote plurality no longer guaranteed a seat. Under the law used for the first time in 2025, the leading candidate in a constituency received a mandate only if the party’s second votes in the Land covered it, so that the Bundestag could be limited to 630 seats; overhang and compensatory mandates were abolished. The dpa report carried by the *Süddeutsche Zeitung* stated that Teske’s 42.1 percent was covered and that he entered on a direct mandate. Nationally, 23 constituency leaders received no seat—15 from the CDU, four from the AfD, three from the CSU and one from the SPD—in Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Bavaria, Rhineland-Palatinate and six other Länder, but not in Thuringia.

The Federal Returning Officer’s list of those elected in Thuringia names Teske for constituency 195 with 42.1 percent. Parliamentwatch records the mandate as won in the constituency, with fifth place on the state list, and the Bundestag biography records a *Wahlkreismandat* for Wahlkreis 195. The 21st Bundestag constituted itself on 25 March 2025, and Teske took his seat for that term as the directly elected member.

## Parliamentary work

### Committees and other bodies

In the 21st Bundestag, Robert Teske of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is listed as a full member of the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs (Ausschuss für Arbeit und Soziales) and, among other bodies, as a deputy member of the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly. Consulted on 1 November 2026, the official biography still showed only those two assignments.

His minor interpellations have stayed inside the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. He was first signatory of Drucksache 21/1197 (12 August 2025), on the "Sozialstaatsdialog" under budget chapter 1107, and of Drucksache 21/4477 (4 March 2026), on digitisation and the use of artificial intelligence in the ministry's modernisation agenda. On 27 February 2026 he co-signed Drucksache 21/4389, on the Commission on Social-State Reform, including a ministry newsletter in which minister [Bärbel Bas](/people/barbel-bas) called a functioning welfare state a buffer against populism and extremism.

### Speeches, motions and votes

The President introduced Teske's speech on 11 July 2025, in the 19th sitting, as his first. Given in the first reading of Einzelplan 11, the 2025 labour budget, and printed in plenary protocol 21/19, it did not deal with withdrawal rates or lump-sum cuts in Bürgergeld. He treated corporate-social-responsibility spending as ideological, saying that in practice the abbreviation meant "Moralpolitik, ja, ätzende Moralpolitik", cited a March 2025 *Wall Street Journal* headline on BlackRock, and closed by asking that people and firms be judged "nach Eignung und Leistung" rather than by moral politics.

Through the autumn he spoke on bills in the same field. On 9 October 2025, in the 31st sitting, he opposed ratification of International Labour Organization Convention No. 155, calling it "reine Symbolpolitik" because German law already contained the rules. On 16 October, in the 34th sitting, he criticised adaptation of machinery law to a regulation of the European Union and the removal of the time limit on the Parcel Courier Protection Act, including a Green proposal that parcels of at least 20 kilograms always be delivered by two people. On 7 November, in the 38th sitting, he called the bill implementing the EU product-safety regulation "ein stiller und ein schleichender Machttransfer".

On 28 November 2025, in the 45th sitting, he spoke on the second reading of Einzelplan 11 for 2026 (Drucksachen 21/2011 and 21/2061). He called the chapter a store of "Verschwendungsfälle" and said "knapp 114 Millionen Euro" had been approved under the programme MY TURN of the European Social Fund Plus. In Thuringia, he said, it funded "Empowerment-Räume", and that a funded project was a founding member of the network Thadine, which after the Kemmerich election had urged the CDU and the FDP to work with Die Linke and to distance themselves from the AfD. He set against that 169 insolvencies in the first half of 2025, up 12 percent, figures he attributed to the state statistical office. Einzelplan 11 then passed with the coalition against every other faction. In the roll-call on the 2026 Budget Act the same day, 322 members voted yes and 252 no; Teske is on the no list, and Abgeordnetenwatch records the same vote.

On 16 January 2026, in the 54th sitting, he spoke to an AfD motion he had signed first, Drucksache 21/3613 of 13 January 2026, "Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz abschaffen". Taken with the government's amending bill (Drucksache 21/2474) and a Left motion to keep and extend the act (Drucksache 21/2574), it was referred as the agenda proposed, the labour committee in the lead. The motion asks for abolition of the German act without replacement and for work "mit allen ihr zur Verfügung stehenden Mitteln" toward repeal of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. Teske said the AfD would not "an den Mängeln herumdoktern" and wanted the legislation switched off "ersatzlos". He quoted Torsten Herrmann of the South Thuringia chamber of industry and commerce in favour of suspension, and said Chancellor [Friedrich Merz](/people/friedrich-merz) had promised the Economic Council in May 2025 an abolition that had not come.

On 22 May 2026, in the 81st sitting, he answered motions on working time from Die Linke and the Greens. He rejected leaving German hours to "Brüsseler Bürokratie" and said the AfD, "als neue Arbeiterpartei", knew the tradition of the eight-hour day and co-determination. [Jan Dieren](/people/jan-dieren) of the Social Democratic Party replied that Teske was not the [workers' party](/organizations/workers-party) but "der organisierte, der gewalttätige Angriff auf die Arbeiter/-innen-Klasse".

On 11 September 2026, in the 94th sitting, again on Einzelplan 11, he asked whether the ministry was responsible for labour and social affairs "oder für korrekte Gesinnung". He named about 600,000 euro for the TU Dortmund project SEDiMA, about 500,000 euro for "Diversity Management in der Pflege", about 600,000 euro for "Safe Space at Work", and 30,357,593.02 euro in 2027 for the ESF Plus line "rückenwind³", against an ESF total he put at 420 million euro. He told Bas and Merz: "Nach Sachsen-Anhalt ist vor dem Bund."

On 25 September 2026, in the 97th sitting, he spoke on Die Linke's motion "Das Solidarprinzip stärken" (Drucksache 21/7970), which states: "Die Krise unseres Sozialstaats ist keine Krise der Solidarität." Teske said that it was. He put the share of foreigners among basic-income recipients at about 50 percent, and he called "knapp 1 Milliarde Euro" in 2024 health spending for asylum seekers, and about 6 billion euro a year for "rund 2,5 Millionen ausländische Bürgergeldbezieher", the motion's own phrase "charakteristische Ressourcenverschwendung". Citing Rolf Peter Sieferle's image of a club with defined membership, he said: "Wir müssen ihn patriotisch denken." The motion was referred as proposed, the labour committee in the lead.

Drucksache 21/7240, signed in Berlin on 9 July 2026 and printed on 22 July 2026, again with Teske named first, calls for an end to labour-ministry grants to non-governmental organisations and for a "Heimatfonds" for crafts training and information-technology courses.

Abgeordnetenwatch's file for the 2025–2029 mandate held 85 roll-call votes when retrieved: 54 no, 24 yes, five abstentions and two absences. Besides the 2026 budget, that file shows nos on the 2025 Budget Act (18 September 2025), on "Stabilisierung des Rentenniveaus und Gleichstellung der Kindererziehungszeiten" (5 December 2025), on redesigning Bürgergeld under Book II of the Social Code (5 March 2026), and on the roll-call titled "GKV-Reform" (10 July 2026).

## Political positions

### Labour and social policy

In his first speech in the Bundestag, on 11 July 2025, Teske called corporate-social-responsibility spending by the labour ministry "ätzende Moralpolitik". Diversity rules from the European Union and the federal government, he said, created bureaucracy; people should be judged by aptitude and performance, not by moral criteria. [Kai Whittaker](/people/kai-whittaker) of the Christian Democratic Union answered that good social policy was neither taking from the rich for the poor nor from foreigners for Germans, but helping people to stand on their own feet.

On 11 September 2026 he said the same ministry looked responsible for "korrekte Gesinnung" rather than for work. He cited diversity schemes such as SEDiMA, "Safe Space at Work" and the European Social Fund programme "rückenwind³", for which he named a 2027 line of about €30.4 million. The welfare state's task, he said, was to create and keep jobs that could sustain social security, not to finance new dependencies. On 22 May 2026 he defended the eight-hour day, collective bargaining and co-determination as gains of the labour movement in Germany, quoted Ferdinand Lassalle, and called the Alternative for Germany a "neue Arbeiterpartei". Further EU rules, he argued, should give way to national ones; performance would pay only if taxes fell; and social progress grew from self-determination, "solidarischer Organisation" and national responsibility. Jan Dieren of the Social Democratic Party replied that the party was not a workers' party but "der organisierte, der gewalttätige Angriff auf die Arbeiter/-innen-Klasse".

A scheme for basic security is in a motion he co-signed on 13 January 2026, "Aktivierende Grundsicherung statt Grundsicherungsgeld" (printed paper 21/3605). After six months, employable adults would keep the successor to Bürgergeld only if they did 15 hours a week of "Bürgerarbeit", unless they already held an insured job of at least 20 hours; refusal would be paid by card rather than in cash; and job centres would suspend benefits if an unauthorised stay abroad was suspected. Many employable foreign nationals would be excluded unless they showed years of subsistence-level insured work and German at B2, and their claims would be time-limited.

### Migration, identity and the welfare state

On 24 March 2017 the *Weser-Kurier* quoted a Twitter post by Teske, then chair of the Young Alternative for Germany in Bremen: "Stadtamt 07:00. Der große Austausch ist Wirklichkeit...#Remigration". The paper treated "great replacement" and "remigration" as combat terms of the Identitarian movement. Teske said the movement had no patent on the words and that he had no contacts with it. On 21 June 2017 the *taz* reported that he had nonetheless marched with the movement in Berlin, posed in a Phalanx Europa shirt and used "der große Austausch" online, and called the phrases racist. Krzysztof Walczak, deputy federal chair of the Young Alternative, said that if so the conduct would breach an incompatibility resolution and be investigated.

On 26 February 2026, on an AfD motion titled "Technisierung statt Zuwanderung", Teske called it a fairy tale when CDU general secretary [Carsten Linnemann](/people/carsten-linnemann) tied Germany's economic miracle and export success to mass migration. Quoting Sven Felix Kellerhoff, he said migrants had "praktisch nichts" to do with that upswing. From the 2024 microcensus he cited about 6.5 million residents who had arrived since 2015, and said too many were now a "Dauergast in unserem Sozialstaat". A subsidised Zalando site in Erfurt that, he said, had hired mostly foreign workers and then closed was "Privatisierung der Gewinne, Sozialisierung der Verluste". He wanted technology and the training of "unserer Jugend" instead. [Janine Wissler](/people/janine-wissler) (Die Linke) called this a class conflict miscast as immigration. [Hülya Düber](/people/hulya-duber) and [Nora Seitz](/people/nora-seitz) (CDU) said foreign workers sustained shortage jobs, and that labour migration was not asylum.

On 25 September 2026, opposing a Left motion, Teske called the welfare-state crisis also "eine Krise der Solidarität", caused by parties from the CDU to the Left. About half of basic-security recipients were foreigners, he said, but transfers did not hold the system together. Following Rolf Peter Sieferle, he likened it to a club of defined members, contributions and duties, bound by "landsmännische Parteilichkeit" rather than by "grenzenlose Umverteilung". Solidarity required cultural proximity, a positive identity and trust, and a decision on who belonged; "Clanmitglieder", in his view, did not. Nearly €1 billion in asylum health costs in 2024, and about €6 billion a year for some 2.5 million foreign Bürgergeld recipients, were the "Kosten der Überfremdung" of a "Multikulti im Sozialstaat" that gave citizens nothing back. His alternative was "solidarischer Patriotismus", concrete solidarity "zum Wohle unseres Volkes": whoever answered for the whole world answered for no one, and club membership must not be given "in die ganze Welt". [Luigi Pantisano](/people/luigi-pantisano) (Die Linke) shouted "Deutschland den Deutschen". President [Julia Klöckner](/people/julia-klockner) said that was his attribution, not Teske's words, recalled the NSDAP's use of the slogan, and asked members not to force such associations.

## Staff, networks and reception

### Bundestag office and Benedikt Kaiser

In April 2025 Robert Teske, a newly elected member of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) from Thuringia, appointed Benedikt Kaiser as a scientific staff member (*wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter*) in his Bundestag office. Teske told t-online that he had known Kaiser "for quite a few years" and that taking on "him and his expertise" was a "logical consequence"; Kaiser called the switch, after Jürgen Pohl left parliament, "the obvious thing", to a "young, dynamic member" such as Teske. In the previous term Kaiser had held the same sort of post for Pohl, a Thuringian AfD member aligned with Björn Höcke. Die Welt disclosed that employment in 2023, and on 28 May 2023 the Tagesspiegel, citing the Welt investigation, reported that Kaiser then had an office of his own in a Bundestag building.

*Robert Teske and Benedikt Kaiser in a photograph published with t-online’s June 2025 report; the outlet identified Kaiser as the man on the left.*

Citing Die Welt, the Tagesspiegel wrote that Kaiser, a political scientist born in 1987, had from 2006 to 2011 been around the later-banned Kameradschaft "Nationale Sozialisten Chemnitz", the hooligan group New Society 2004 ("NS-Boys"), and marches of the [National Democratic Party](/organizations/national-democratic-party) of Germany, including NPD-registered demonstrations in Berlin, Zwickau and Chemnitz. t-online, also citing Die Welt, described his presence at several neo-Nazi marches, among them a 2011 event titled "Demonstration der NPD und ihrer seelenverwandten Kameradschaften".

t-online, which described Kaiser as one of the most prominent thinkers of the Neue Rechte, reported that he then spent eight years as an editor at Verlag Antaios, the house of Götz Kubitschek, and that Kubitschek's Institut für Staatspolitik—renamed Menschenpark in 2024, the article said—produced ideological groundwork for the AfD in close contact with Höcke and the former "Flügel". Books named by t-online and Focus, *Solidarischer Patriotismus*, *Die Partei und ihr Vorfeld* and *Die Konvergenz der Krisen*, were reported to offer the AfD direct advice, including a "mosaic right" with more radical forces outside the party and a stronger welfare state on what t-online called a culturally *völkisch* idea of the state. Both outlets reported that Höcke had in 2023 called Kaiser one of the "most effective young prompters of the popular opposition" (*wirkmächtigsten jungen Stichwortgeber der Volksopposition*) and had treated "solidarischer Patriotismus" as a guiding term of the AfD's "Thuringian path". As Pohl's staffer, Kaiser had already sat in the AfD group's working group on labour and social affairs; Teske said his request for a place in that group had been granted, with the "future of work" as his field.

t-online did not present the appointment as unique. Jan Wenzel Schmidt, an AfD member from Saxony-Anhalt, confirmed that he still employed Mario Müller, whom the outlet described as a former leading cadre of the Identitarian Movement Germany and as a repeat violent offender. The same report, repeated by Focus, said Jonas Schick, a former Identitarian activist and publisher of *Die Kehre*, was still in the Bundestag office of René Springer, the AfD state chair in Brandenburg, and that the Identitarian Movement is on the AfD's incompatibility list.

Teske had been Höcke's office manager in the Thuringian state parliament for six years. He told t-online that he would not speak of an "emancipation" from Höcke, that the two remained "very close fellow campaigners" (*sehr enge Mitstreiter*), and that the state group in the Bundestag should stay tied to the state executive. Weeks before that article, t-online reported, the two attended an evening hosted by AfD member [Matthias Helferich](/people/matthias-helferich) on whether 8 May was a "day of liberation"; Teske called it a "very nice event" and Kaiser a "great audience". In July 2026 the *Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung*, assessing Höcke's standing in the party, used a photograph captioned as Höcke with Teske at the AfD congress in Riesa in January 2025.

### Media and political reaction

On 7 June 2025 t-online published Annika Leister's account under a headline calling Kaiser an "Ex-Neonazi" and a "Szene-Vordenker", with the label "right-wing extremist personnel change". The article argued that the AfD was using tax revenue and Bundestag staff posts to network and promote far-right figures, to the benefit of Höcke, who is not a Bundestag member. Unnamed party sources told the paper that Kaiser had not particularly stood out in the labour working group, and the article questioned whether the post had served outside publishing more than parliamentary programme work. The same day Focus attributed the news to t-online under a near-identical headline that again used "Ex-Neonazi" and "Szene-Vordenker".

That vocabulary was already fixed to Kaiser's parliamentary employment. The Tagesspiegel's 28 May 2023 headline said an AfD Bundestag member was employing a "former neo-Nazi", and the paper quoted Pohl's refusal to discuss the past with Die Welt: "I generally give no information about my staff. Staff are protected by German labour law, which I passionately represented as a lawyer." Kaiser, it reported, did not answer the inquiry. In 2025 Teske and Kaiser did speak to t-online, presenting the new contract as continuity—an acquaintance of several years, and a change of member after Pohl's departure—rather than as a break with the record those outlets had described.

In May 2026 *Die Tageszeitung* still described Kaiser as working for the AfD and as networked with Kubitschek and Martin Sellner, and treated his late-2025 book *Der Hegemonie entgegen* as reading like a handbook for what the reviewer called an "identitarian revolution".

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/robert-teske