Hannes Loth drives an electric car and wants to install wind turbines in his municipality.
Loth, Germany's first full-time mayor from the right-wing, populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), is promoting the expansion of renewable energy — even though it runs counter to his party's platform.
The farmer has been mayor of Raguhn-Jeßnitz since 2023 and has ambitious plans. In the town of around 8,600 people in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, he wants to build a battery storage facility with a substation, and six new wind turbines.
Tilo Hörtzsch, a local councilor for the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Raguhn-Jeßnitz, confirmed the plans. "Mr. Loth isn't someone who brings ideology into everything," the owner of a local electrical engineering company told DW. "We need these key technologies in Saxony-Anhalt — they're important."
Fears of a policy reversal
