AfD co-founder Alexander Gauland has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy

Diagnosis confirmed by his office

Alexander Gauland, co-founder of the AfD, has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy, according to his office. Office head Marco Wall confirmed a report by the news portal Tag24 on the illness. Wall said the 85-year-old has been operated on three times and that the illness weighs heavily on his daily life and his work. Gauland is currently working from home. Whether he can attend plenary and committee sessions depends on how the chemotherapy goes, and he hopes to return to sessions more often. Wall put it this way:

“Since the beginning of last year, Dr Gauland can attend Bundestag sessions only to a limited extent, for health reasons, due to a cancer illness.”

Reduced attendance and voting record

The office dates the limits on his attendance to early 2025. A count by Tag24 shows 85 roll-call votes in the current legislative term, and Gauland took part in 47 of them, about 55%. For 38 of the votes no vote from him was recorded. Between 24 September and 15 October he missed all 17 roll-call votes held in that stretch. Neither the office nor the reporting says when the diagnosis was made or whether it was known before the federal election of 23 February 2025.

Participated47

No recorded vote38

Participated

47 votes

No recorded vote

38 votes

Data from the article text

Career and party reaction

Gauland co-founded the AfD in 2013 after a long period in the CDU. He later became deputy party leader and served as AfD chair from 2017 to 2019, and he is now honorary chairman of the party and its parliamentary group. Before the 2025 federal election he had announced his withdrawal from politics, but he ran again and won the direct mandate in Chemnitz constituency 161 with 32.2% of first votes. Bernd Baumann, the first parliamentary managing director of the AfD group, told reporters in Berlin that the party had taken the news with great shock. Baumann told reporters the party had taken the news in Berlin with great shock, and he said:

“Alexander Gauland is one of the pillars and courageous people who brought this AfD into being.”

Earlier signals

In February 2026 Gauland said in an interview that his health was not good, but he did not mention cancer. In that interview he said:

“That always depends on health, and right now I am not doing well.”

Baumann added that colleagues had seen Gauland's poor condition in the plenary, but that he had never made the illness public. The office has not named a diagnosis date and did not say whether the illness was known before the 2025 election. Reporting notes that Gauland, at 85, is the oldest member of the Bundestag.