SONNEBERG (THURINGIA) – The ogre has fallen into the land of toys. The inhabitants saw it all coming. But the rest of Germany is terrified. Two weeks ago, in a sleepy corner of Thuringia famous for its teddy bear and soft toy factories, almost half of the citizens voted for the ultra-right Afd candidate, Robert Stuhlman. Today, in the ballot, he could beat his rival, Juergen Koepper (Cdu). And become the first district administrator Of sun mountain, the first far-right mayor of a district. For many it will be confirmation that Thuringia is the heart of darkness of a country that is awakening its darkest instincts. Even at the federal level, the AFD has reached a peak of 20% in recent polls. It even surpassed the chancellor’s party, the SPD.
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“Do you want to know why people vote for us? Because schools are falling apart, hospitals and factories are closing down, and young people are running away. The Scholz government cuts everywhere, but only for the Germans. When it comes to finding money for the war in Ukraine, it’s always there.” Falko Graf, local spokesman for the AfD, is also thinking about the last mile of the electoral campaign. Together with other militants, he set up a tent next to a roundabout. Every now and then someone passes and honks the horn. Someone else yells “the Nazis out”. The climate is tense. Graf grabs his cell phone, “I have to make a call, there’s a suspicious car driving around here. There are rumors that the black blocs could come from Leipzig.” Then he calls the police. A few moments later he bursts into a loud and embarrassed laugh: “Ah, was it you the car? I’m so sorry.”
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Paranoia is the hallmark of many AfD voters, it is the sentiment obsessively ridden by its politicians. But that is not enough to explain the success of the right in the old lands of the East. In Thuringia, the AFD was swept far to the right by Bjoern Hoecke, the controversial regional leader who called Berlin’s Holocaust monument “a disgrace”. According to one judge, Hoecke can be described as a “fascist”. And when the votes of the AfD were decisive in crowning a candidate governor from the liberals and the CDU, Angela Merkel was forced to intervene from South Africa to force the annulment of that election, in order not to create an intolerable precedent. But east of Elba, it is increasingly difficult to isolate the AFD. And Sonneberg proves it. To defeat the AfD candidate, a Brancaleone army has formed which supports his opponent Koepper and ranges from conservatives to the radical left.
The factories and the toys
On the central square of Sonneberg there is a statue reminiscent of its golden age: three bronze teddy bears. “Have you seen how sad they are? They look down. As if to forget the past, when Piko electric trains were produced here, as well as lots of ceramics and glass”. Factories, meanwhile, have closed or moved to China. And for toys there is only one museum left. Thomas Schwemmlein, deputy editor of the local newspaper “Freies Wort”, shrugs. Over a bad coffee he shows me a sausage kiosk, “Wunder’s Huettla”. Closed forever. The owners have retired and the children have left. “People see that the center is emptying out and the old German restaurants and shops are being bought up by Syrians, Italians or Turks. This is obviously a good thing, because here there is a dramatic lack of manpower and traders, but many feel threatened. And the AfD exploits these insecurities ferociously”. Just as it exploits the rampant hatred for government green initiatives such as the law for the replacement of old boilers. “Many here are old and live in single-family houses. This financial sacrifice was added to the galloping inflation, based on ecological considerations that many find it difficult to understand”.
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Schwemmlein is very angry with his colleagues in the big newspapers. “One from Berlin wrote that the Nazi salute is given in schools and that people on the phone greet each other with ‘Heil Hitler’. I did an investigation into the schools in the district, they all fell from the pear tree”. Moreover, he himself has difficulty speaking with the AfD and with Sesselmann, who has refused interviews with all the traditional press. “The Afd calls us Luegenpresse”, ‘liar press’”. A term that comes straight from the thirties.