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Photographs by Ingmar Nolting
Text by Christopher F. Schuetze
Ingmar Nolting and Christopher Schuetze spent time this summer in Görlitz District, Germany’s most eastern part, speaking to voters, activists and politicians.
Whatever the outcome of the elections on Sunday in the eastern states of Saxony and Thuringia, the far-right Alternative for Germany party long ago stepped from the political fringe and into the mainstream in Görlitz.
Hard on the Polish border, Görlitz’s district in the state of Saxony gave more than 40 percent of its votes to the AfD, as the party is known, in the elections for the European Parliament in June. That was the most of any district in Germany.
Despite the fact that parts of the AfD have been labeled extremist by domestic intelligence, the party has been in the state Parliament for 10 years already. Sunday is now expected to be the first time since the Nazi era that a far-right party will win statewide elections in Germany.
The region, home to vast open-pit coal mines, used to be the engine room of the former East Germany. But since the reunification of Germany in 1990, many of the mines have closed, taking jobs with them and sinking the economy to near last in the country.
Though their region has fewer immigrants than most places in Germany, many residents are unhappy with what they see as too much money being spent on asylum seekers, migrants and military support for Ukraine.
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