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In the relatively well-off city of Zwickau, in Germany’s former communist east, economic uncertainty and a turbulent history have combined to drive support for the far right ahead of a key regional election.<\/p>\n
“People are afraid of losing everything they’ve built up again over the years,” said Zwickau’s mayor, Constance Arndt.<\/p>\n
To understand why “the mood is so bad” ahead of Sunday’s elections in the state of Saxony, one has to “perhaps delve into the past”, she told AFP.<\/p>\n
Zwickau residents have “achieved a certain level of prosperity” after a period of painful decline in the wake of German reunification in 1990, she said.<\/p>\n
The city owes its revival in part to its status as a hub for automotive manufacturing, with Volkswagen a major employer in the area.<\/p>\n
But recent crises, from the coronavirus pandemic to the Ukraine war and high inflation, have triggered a renewed “fear of losing”, said Arndt, 47, from her office overlooking a picturesque market square.<\/p>\n
As a result, some are voting for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “out of protest”, the independent mayor in the city of some 90,000 people added.<\/p>\n
At the start of the year, thousands of people in Zwickau nevertheless rallied against the far right following revelations that some members of the anti-Islam, anti-immigrant AfD had joined a meeting that discussed plans for mass deportations of asylum seekers.<\/p>\n
The rallies, which also took place across Germany, were at the time seen as a rare mobilisation of the so-called silent majority against right-wing extremism.<\/p>\n
But it didn’t last long.<\/p>\n
In early June, the AfD won a municipal election to become the largest group on Zwickau’s district council.<\/p>\n
Although the AfD fell short of a majority, council discussions are expected to become more challenging, the mayor predicted, particularly regarding cultural funding.<\/p>\n
– Swastikas –<\/p>\n
On a sweltering day in August, social worker Joerg Banitz pointed out several swastika tags and inscriptions of “NS-Zone”, a reference to the Nazi era, daubed onto walls outside the city centre.<\/p>\n
“We see that a lot,” said the Zwickau native, who was one of the organisers of the demonstrations against the far right early this year.<\/p>\n
Banitz believes the AfD’s rise is fuelled by more than just protest votes.<\/p>\n
The party’s “radical language, its way of thinking” now has “an acceptance” among the public, he said, helped by the fact that conservatives from the centre-right CDU party in Saxony have adopted some of their populist stances.<\/p>\n
“I think most of the people who vote for the AfD want exactly what the programme says,” he added.<\/p>\n
The AfD has found fertile ground in a city with an active right-wing extremist scene, Banitz said. It was in Zwickau that the three members of the NSU neo-Nazi cell, who murdered nine people of immigrant origin between 2000 and 2007, hid from the police for years.<\/p>\n
Wolfgang Wetzel, a Zwickau city councillor from the Green party, said many locals felt overwhelmed in an increasingly complex world.<\/p>\n
And in a region that has lived through two consecutive authoritarian regimes, Nazism and then communist East Germany, there is a resurgence of “nostalgia for the simplicity of dictatorship, where you don’t have to make decisions,” which benefits the far right, Wetzel said.<\/p>\n
– ‘Uncertainty’ –<\/p>\n
But the AfD rejects those interpretations.<\/p>\n
“I think people simply don’t want to be deceived anymore,” said Jonas Duenzel, a candidate for the AfD in the Saxony election, where polls suggest the party is neck-and-neck with the CDU.<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old former insurance salesman took aim at the conservatives who he said had co-opted AfD calls for tougher border controls and asylum policies, but done nothing to make that happen during their five years in power.<\/p>\n
If people vote for the AfD, “it’s not because they’re turning away from democracy”, as Saxony prime minister Michael Kretschmer from the CDU has claimed, but because “they have a problem with Mr Kretschmer”, he said.<\/p>\n
The increased populist sentiment has worried Volkswagen, which produces all-electric vehicles at a large plant in Zwickau. The AfD regularly rails against the push towards zero-emissions driving, dismissing it as “a fairy tale”.<\/p>\n
“The discussions about the future of electric mobility create uncertainty” for the roughly 10,000 workers at the Zwickau plant, said Christian Sommer, VW’s head of corporate communications in Saxony.<\/p>\n
“And there is indeed a fear,” he told AFP, “that these jobs could be threatened if a right-wing populist-conservative government were to emerge from the elections.”<\/p>\n
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