Just before the hearing scheduled for November 2026, the State Education Office of Saxony-Anhalt removed the reprimand against Stendal teacher Max Heckel from his personnel file. This means the hearing at the Magdeburg Labour Court. The The Saxony-Anhalt Ministry of Education confirmed the deletion, but gave no detailed reasons in its public statements.
The reprimand was issued in April 2025 after Heckel had taken a critical view of the AfD in class. According to consistent reports from MDR, ZDF and Deutschlandfunk and Heckel’s own account, the school supervisory authority justified its action at the time on the grounds that he had breached the requirement to maintain political impartiality. The staff council and representatives of the GEW trade union had objected. The case was debated across the state and received repeated media coverage.
With the reprimand removed, the ongoing labour court proceedings have effectively come to an end. There will therefore be no substantive ruling by the Magdeburg Labour Court. Observers criticise the last-minute withdrawal for preventing a court from setting a precedent on the scope of the duty of neutrality in the classroom, particularly when teachers discuss positions considered extremist or a threat to democracy. The authority has so far published no further explanation.
At the heart of the matter is a tension: on the one hand, employment law requires civil servants and other school staff to maintain political impartiality; on the other, their educational role includes contextualising political statements and strengthening democratic values. The proceedings could have clarified questions of specificity and proportionality in relation to reprimands under employment law. That opportunity has now been lost, at least for the time being.
Politically, the case is Saxony-Anhalt sensitive. It touches on how schools handle party-political controversies and the question of how teachers can act with confidence when discussing constitutionally significant positions in class. Education Minister Jan Riedel had previously commented on the case publicly. No specific employment-related consequences beyond the reprimand that has now been deleted are known at present.
What is clear is that the reprimand against Max Heckel has been removed from his personnel file and the scheduled court hearing has been cancelled. It remains to be seen whether the State Education Office of Saxony-Anhalt or the Saxony-Anhalt Ministry of Education will provide a detailed explanation for the decision, and whether similar cases will be clarified by the courts promptly. For teachers in schools in Saxony-Anhalt, the legal position therefore remains unclear for the time being, in the view of many involved.
Editor: Mira Cadena (Article created with AI assistance).