On Tuesday, 20 October 2026, Bild reported that more than 421,000 emails linked to Alternative für Deutschland had appeared online, after a cyberattack in September. NOS rounded the figure to more than 400,000. The party confirmed an attack on a hosting provider. This is a published leak, not a court ruling and not an independent certification of the whole set.

An AfD spokesperson said unknown attackers copied data from a limited number of accounts, most of which had not been used for years. Spiegel, quoting the party, writes that the attack was quickly spotted and stopped and that all affected users were told. Current mailboxes of the federal association, on the same account, were not hit.

Bild placed among the haul messages attributed to co-leader Alice Weidel and founder Alexander Gauland. Spiegel notes that although emails said to come from Weidel appeared, her own mailbox was probably not breached. Those are two claims: attributed content versus a hacked inbox. Spiegel also speaks of ten mailboxes, including an account in Gauland’s name and an old federal-office address. The party speaks only of “a few” boxes. The two counts do not match.

Stern, cited by NOS, dates the roughly 421,000 messages between 2014 and 12 September 2026. Some 39,000 are said to have attachments. In all, about 49,000 documents, including ID photographs, bank statements and membership lists. Stern writes that almost 60,000 messages were put online in searchable form. 421,000 and 60,000 are two counts, not one.

Euronews notes that a website published what it presented as summaries, not the original messages. AfD said the online publication of “presumably a portion” of the data is being examined and that a first assessment will come after that review. Who attacked, and whether more data left, remain unclear. The authenticity of the trove has not been certified by an independent authority.

This is not a conviction and not a verdict on the political content of the messages. Tuesday’s announcement does not mean the party’s current federal servers are standing open, and it is not the same event as an AfD congress already on this site.

Image: the Reichstag in Berlin, seen from the Spree, 14 June 2019, Lwd-fotograaf, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The parliament building in 2019, not the day of the leak.

Sources consulted: Hackers maakten ruim 400.000 AfD-mails buit, ook van partijleider Weidel — NOS; Hackers steal 421,000 emails belonging to members of Germany's far-right AfD party — Euronews; AfD bestätigt Hackerangriff auf E-Mail-Konten — Der Spiegel.