Current German law strictly requires teachers to remain politically neutral. However, a recent incident involving Maya Tischler, a 30-year-old Green Party politician, raises questions about whether this neutrality is properly enforced.
Before being elected to the state parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Tischler worked as a history teacher in Ribnitz-Damgarten. Controversial comments she made regarding her former students are now coming to light, highlighting the censorship Germans who do not fall in line with left-liberal ideologies face.
Tischler reportedly stated that she fought daily against discriminatory, racist, and violent rhetoric in her rural school environment. She even openly admitted to frequently removing AfD stickers from classroom furniture and noted that many local parents were involved with the right-wing party.
“I’m simply fed up,” she said at a 2025 Green Party conference, adding that she had “stopped counting how many AfD stickers we unfortunately had to scrape off the chairs in the classrooms,” according to Junge Freiheit.
Tischler also expressed immense relief at being able to openly label the AfD as “definitely far-right” to her students, noting she was exhausted from dealing with the issue, particularly after a tense debate with students during a field trip to the Ravensbrück concentration camp memorial. She also previously confirmed her support for a ban on the AfD.
As vice president of the state parliament in Schwerin, Tischler is expected to remain impartial, a mandate for both teachers and politicians. Her critics are now questioning her suitability for either profession.
Thore Stein, the AfD’s parliamentary manager in the state, condemned her appointment to the parliament’s presidium, telling JF it was “an absolute mockery of the principle of neutrality in office.”
Last year, German influencer Eva Vlaardingerbroek had her shadow ban on X lifted by Elon Musk, in a case where the EU claimed it had restricted her account due to the EU’s Digital Services Act. While her account regained its normal status, many conservatives in Germany and across Europe continue to have their voices muffled. And with teachers like Maya Tischler, this censorship campaign starts early.
