Hundreds of Green Party members from across Germany have converged on eastern states like Saxony-Anhalt to bolster election campaigns amid fears of a potential far-right breakthrough.

Facing a shortage of local campaigners in eastern Germany, the Green Party has called on its western members for reinforcements ahead of key regional elections. Approximately 500 volunteers have traveled to areas like Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where polls indicate that the Greens are hovering around the crucial five-percent threshold needed to maintain political representation. These regions have some of the party’s smallest membership bases, fueling concerns about their ability to stave off a prospective rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Among the volunteers is Irina Freihart, a Green Party member from Munich, who spent the weekend distributing flyers in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt. Freihart described the experience as vastly different from her home city, where recent Green successes include the election of Dominik Krause as Munich’s first Green mayor. While engaging with locals, Freihart encountered resistance, including from passersby who openly rejected the campaign materials or pointed to nearby AfD stands as an indication of the region’s shifting political mood.

The initiative reflects the Green Party’s broader strategy to pool national resources in combating the AfD’s growing influence in eastern Germany. Volunteers like Freihart cite personal motivations for participating, seeing their political engagement as both a form of activism and a way to combat feelings of powerlessness. As eastern coalitions organize to prevent an AfD-led government, Green campaigners say their efforts are aimed at fostering dialogue and energizing support for progressive politics in the region.