Forests in Saxony-Anhalt: When the AfD wants asylum seekers to restore the German soul

The AfD’s leading candidate in Saxony-Anhalt’s accelerating election campaign rode the Harz narrow-gauge railway to the Brocken at the end of July, beneath bright sun and freshly pressed campaign optimism. The party’s video presented a landscape of “freedom and solidarity,” while passengers told Ulrich Siegmund, “This is the ideal world.”

But outside the campaign frame, the view is far less idyllic. The Brocken is one of Germany’s best-known examples of a dying forest. The mountain, immortalized by Goethe and Heine, now bears the marks of a natural spectacle that has unsettled many observers.

Bark beetles, drought and extreme weather have killed much of the conifer population. Local conditions have added to the damage. At the end of August, police said they suspected that sparks from the narrow-gauge railway had caused a forest fire. Hikers heading toward the legendary mountain have encountered slopes covered in deadwood for several years.

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This is the ideal world

The collapse of the climate conditions is transforming the landscape. Where the mining history of the ore-rich Harz did not destroy the forest, today’s dying monocultures are turning lush green slopes into a gray-brown wasteland. Yet the dead trees are also making room for something new. The first green pioneer plants are already growing.

The article presents the AfD’s forest agenda as ideological rather than simply practical. Its campaign uses the damaged woodland while connecting forest management with migration and asylum seekers, leaving the climate crisis largely outside the picture.

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It could be so beautiful, everywhere in Germany