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🇦🇹 Austria /Elections & Politics

In eastern Germany, the firewall may not have been such a good idea

From Die Presse · () German

Translated from German and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Analysis Named sources Context piece
  • The AfD could win more than 40% in Sunday’s Saxony-Anhalt state election, with polls suggesting it might even secure an absolute majority of seats.
  • The article examines the state’s contrasting realities, from depopulated former industrial areas to renovated towns and new factories.
  • It argues that the refusal of mainstream parties to cooperate with the AfD may have intensified voters’ emotional response and sense of exclusion.

The AfD could cross the 40% mark in Saxony-Anhalt, and an outright majority of seats even appears possible. That prospect has heightened political anxiety in Germany ahead of Sunday’s state election.

Recent reporting has focused on the former East German state’s bleakest features: areas hollowed out by mass emigration, abandoned lignite-mining districts and once-prosperous regions where the local steel industry closed before much else followed. Such decline might seem to offer a straightforward explanation for support for a political system change.

But Saxony-Anhalt also has carefully restored historic centers, new industrial companies and places that resemble the “flourishing landscapes” Helmut Kohl once promised eastern Germany. The state’s reality does not fit neatly into a single account of economic despair.

I don’t care about any of that, I don’t believe them anymore.

— Voters interviewed by Oliver GeorgiThe voters’ response to CDU Minister-President Sven Schulze’s focus on economic policy, education and schools.

Oliver Georgi of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung took a different approach. He traveled through the state with CDU Minister-President Sven Schulze and later with his AfD challenger, Ulrich Siegmund. Georgi said Schulze discussed economic policy, education and schools, but voters told him, “I don’t care about any of that, I don’t believe them anymore.”

When Georgi asked AfD supporters what exactly troubled them about politics, he said they often had no specific answer. Instead, he sensed an emotion that the AfD was cultivating: everything was going downhill, politicians in Berlin and Magdeburg were not listening, and Siegmund finally appeared to listen. The article presents this uncertainty as more revealing than polished explanations, particularly because Saxony-Anhalt has a migrant population of less than 10% yet supports a party promising a complete reversal in migration policy. Many former East Germans also resent being told by western Germans which party they are allowed to choose.

Everything is going downhill, the people in Berlin don’t listen to us, and neither do those in Magdeburg. Now someone like Ulrich Siegmund has come along and finally listens to us.

— AfD supporters, as described by Oliver GeorgiThe emotional explanation Georgi said he repeatedly heard from AfD supporters.
About this summary

Originally published by Die Presse in German. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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