Max lives in a small village in Saarland, where change often feels like decline. Doctors are closing, young people move away. Buses come rarely, if at all. For many in his community, there's a growing sense that “politics” happens somewhere else—far away, in cities that thrive while rural areas are slowly forgotten.

He shares how this everyday reality shaped his worldview. Mainstream parties, he says, promise a lot but deliver little. The feeling of being unheard is not just his—it runs through his family, his neighbors, and many of his peers. In these surroundings, political dissatisfaction doesn’t feel radical. It feels normal.

Max is open about it: he’s voting for the AfD. Not out of hate, he insists, but out of conviction that Germany needs “real change.” Immigration, national identity, and cultural values are central concerns for him. He believes the AfD is the only party addressing these topics honestly—without euphemism, without shame.

He rejects the far-right label often placed on AfD voters. “I’m not a Nazi,” he says, directly to the camera. For Max, voting AfD is a way of pushing back against what he sees as censorship, elitism, and the erosion of German values. It’s not about rejecting democracy—but about demanding a version of it that includes him.

Max’s story is personal—but it echoes across much of Germany’s east. Young, politically aware, but deeply skeptical of the status quo, he represents a generation growing up with economic uncertainty, social change, and a loss of trust in traditional institutions.