Ulrich Siegmund was born on 25 October 1990 in Havelberg, Saxony-Anhalt. The now 35-year-old has been a member of the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament since 2016 and, since August 2022, has co-chaired the AfD parliamentary group together with Oliver Kirchner. In 2025, he was chosen as the AfD’s lead candidate for the 2026 state election.
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His professional path did not start directly in politics. Siegmund trained as a wholesale and foreign trade clerk. He then studied business psychology and business administration, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Before entering politics, Siegmund made his money in fragrances. In 2014, at the age of 23, he founded a company in the field of scent marketing. The firm sold fragrance oils, scent accessories and scenting technology, and offered consultancy services in marketing and sales. Siegmund’s studies in business psychology and business administration were also directly linked to his business: his bachelor’s thesis examined the psychological impact of scent marketing on purchasing behaviour.
In 2014, Siegmund and a business partner founded the company “Berlin duftet”. The idea was to use targeted ambient scents to make, among other places, BVG and S-Bahn stations more pleasant and thereby reduce stress, aggression and vandalism. In a report by WELT at the time, Siegmund said he was thinking, for example, of a relaxing scent such as lavender.
Particularly interesting is that Siegmund, at the time, pointed to experiences in New York, where busy train stations were subtly perfumed with vanilla. He drew on studies suggesting that pleasant smells can improve people’s mood.
Siegmund was initially a member of the CDU before switching to the AfD. He joined the AfD at the age of 24. Two years later, he entered the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament for the first time.
The social media politician
Today, Siegmund is one of the best-known AfD politicians in Germany. He owes a significant part of his success to his social media strategy. More than 400,000 people now follow him on Instagram; on TikTok, he has more than 763,500 followers, making him one of the most-followed politicians in Germany.
Siegmund often comes across as friendly, easy-going and close to ordinary people, posing for photos with supporters and relying heavily on his election campaigns at family festivals, citizen dialogues and personal encounters.
International media often describe him as the AfD’s “sunny face”. The Financial Times portrays his campaign as deliberately community-oriented and family-focused.
Siegmund is calling, among other things, for a far more restrictive migration policy, deportations and a fundamental change in state policy.
His family and other private details
Siegmund is married and has a daughter. His wife, Julia, has also already appeared on camera, though not in a political context. She featured in the VOX wedding docu-soap “Zwischen Tüll & Tränen”, where she was looking for her wedding dress for her marriage to Ulrich Siegmund.
For his party, he works extensively with concepts such as home, security, family and change.
In 2017, Siegmund left the Catholic Church. Its values, he says, he carries “in his heart”, but he rejects the German institution behind them. In his office hangs a portrait of Otto von Bismarck from nearby Schönhausen, beneath the sentence: “An idea that is right cannot be lied away in the long run.”
His older brother sits on Tangermünde’s town council as an independent. His mother died in an accident in 2019.
Controversies in the media
In 2026, Siegmund’s father, Andreas, came under scrutiny for “nepotism”. The 66-year-old works in the parliamentary office of AfD MP Thomas Korell in the Bundestag. He had previously worked for other AfD MPs. Siegmund defended in principle the hiring of relatives and party friends and pointed out, among other things, that it was difficult for the AfD to find good people because anyone working for the party is stigmatised.
A widely reported media controversy involving Martin Sellner and Ulrich Siegmund also centred on a meeting near Potsdam in November 2023. Siegmund took part in the gathering, at which Austrian right-wing extremist Martin Sellner spoke about “remigration”. By this, Sellner meant not only the return of foreigners obliged to leave the country, but also measures against “non-assimilated citizens” with a migration background.
Siegmund subsequently described his participation as private and explained, in essence, that mere attendance at a lecture does not imply agreement with its content.
On Abgeordnetenwatch, Siegmund was asked in January 2024 whether he distanced himself from Sellner’s “master plan for remigration”. His reply was: “The accusations must be rejected.”
The Saxony-Anhalt Office for the Protection of the Constitution, a department of the CDU-led Interior Ministry, classified the AfD’s Saxony-Anhalt branch on 7 November 2023 as a “proven right-wing extremist endeavour”. The grounds cited included anti-Muslim, racist and antisemitic statements by AfD officials and elected representatives.
However, the classification is legally disputed and under review by the courts. The AfD is challenging it; the proceedings are currently suspended.
Siegmund has also managed to turn to his advantage the fact that SPIEGEL’s mid-August cover dubbed the lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt “Germany’s most dangerous man”. In the election campaign, he signed piles of copies of SPIEGEL with his photo on the cover, which are being auctioned on eBay for sky-high sums.
From state MP to potential minister-president
Siegmund’s political rise has occurred in just a few years. In 2016, he entered the state parliament for the first time; in 2022, he and Oliver Kirchner took over the chairmanship of the AfD group. In 2025, the party placed him at the top of its state list for the 2026 election.
Now it is about far more than another parliamentary seat: Siegmund wants to become minister-president of Saxony-Anhalt. However, he has himself said that he will only govern if the AfD alone commands an outright majority.
If the AfD does indeed win a governing majority, Siegmund could become Germany’s first AfD minister-president.
On our own behalf: you can also watch the latest Euronews exclusive report
