Germany's AfD investigates alleged theft of 421,000 internal emails

Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party said on Tuesday that hackers may have stolen data from several of its email accounts following a cyberattack on an external hosting provider.

"In September 2026, a hacker attack targeted one of our party's hosting service providers, during which parts of a small number of email inboxes - most of which had not been used for years - were apparently copied without authorization," the AfD said in response to an inquiry.

The party said current email accounts belonging to its national organization had not been affected.

Unknown individuals have published emails online, claiming to have obtained access to around 421,000 AfD emails. The authenticity of the material has not been verified.

Those responsible claim the data came from 10 email accounts, including one in the name of former AfD leader Alexander Gauland and another previously listed by the party as a contact address for its national headquarters.

A link circulating online leads to a website said to provide an overview of the allegedly obtained emails.

According to research by dpa, the anonymous site was only registered in mid-October. It provides no information about the origin of the data and does not publish the contents of the emails, which are said to be stored on a separate download server.

The AfD said the cyberattack had been quickly detected and stopped, and that all affected users had been informed.

The party said it was investigating the online publication of what it believes may be some of the stolen data.

An initial assessment would only be possible once the investigation was complete, it added.

Party sources told dpa that the emails published online appeared to be authentic. However, summaries apparently generated by artificial intelligence appear to contain several inaccuracies, they said.

Among those affected by the hacker attack is a digital service provider called Alternita, which is owned by the AfD, the sources said.

Inboxes used by the AfD regional chapters in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia and in the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern have also been targeted, they added.

It comes after the AfD federal office said several weeks ago that several inboxes had to be shut down due to a cyberattack, according to the sources.