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The Angry East

Ingmar Nolting
People spend time on a Saturday at Lake Bärwalder See with the Boxberg coal-fired power plant in the background in Boxberg/Oberlausitz, Germany on August 10, 2024. In 2020 the German government decided that the first two units at the Boxberg coal-fired power plant would be shut down by the end of 2029 and the remaining units by 2038. Participants of the silent protest with Reich flags, which are mainly used in right-wing extremist circles, on the B96 in Ebersbach-Neugersdorf, Germany on August 11, 2024. Since 2020, "silent protests" have taken place every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. along the B96 federal highway. The B96, which stretches over 500 kilometers from Zittau to Rügen, was known as the "Road of Dreams" in GDR times. From 2020, the section between Zittau and Bautzen became famous due to the protests. Originally initiated by a Facebook group against the COVID-19 measures, the protests were quickly appropriated by right-wing extremists and Reich citizens. Today, these Sunday demonstrations continue and are mainly attended by Reich citizens and far-right circles, including supporters of the far-right Free Saxony party and the AfD. Dr. Gottfried Hanzl (right), 74, general practitioner from Oderwitz during a home visit to a retirement home in Zittau, Germany on August 6, 2024. Due to the ageing population and poor transport links in the rural area, he makes numerous house calls. Dr. Hanzl has been treating some of his patients for 30 years. Recently, he has noticed a growing dissatisfaction among the villagers, many of whom express their political frustrations during his visits. Often, he notes, their views are shaped by unverified internet sources. There is a nationwide shortage of doctors in rural areas, Saxony is particularly affected. Johanna-Marie Stiller (28) (Die Linke party) poses for a portrait in a unicorn costume during an election campaign event at the skate park in Weißwasser, Germany on August 20, 2024. During the election campaign, she uses the costume to attract the attention of potential voters. She has also designed her election program according to the Unicorn theme. An AfD election poster of Sebastian Wippel for the state election on a truck tarpaulin next to the federal highway 115 near Görlitz, Germany on August 11, 2024. The election poster reads: "For Görlitz. For Saxony. With certainty!" Monday protest in Görlitz, Germany on August 5, 2024. The organization team of the Görlitz Monday protest is classified as extremist by the Saxon Office for the Protection of the Constitution. It regularly provides a stage for far-right extremists. The Monday marches were originally directed against coronavirus measures and have since become increasingly radicalized. Visitors of an election campaign event of AfD politician Sebastian Wippel at the Deutsche Eiche (restaurant German Oak) in Tetta, Germany on August 20, 2024. Marcus Eder (35) (left) and Hussain Sarhan(19) (center), who came to Germany from Syria 2 years ago, pick plums on a plantation of the Enderhof in Spittel (Weißenberg), Germany, on August 9, 2024. The 35-year-old organic farmer Marcus Eder comes from a farming family. Four generations currently live together on his farm. AAt the end of the 1970s, the farm was forcibly collectivized by the LPG (type 2) and henceforth farmed by the LPG. Four years ago, Marcus Eder restarted the business and now runs a community-based farm with his wife. Many people told him that his idea of community-supported organic farming would not work in this region, that the products would be too expensive for the local population and that there was little support for such alternative agricultural concepts. But he has not been dissuaded from his idea, and it seems to be working. Andre Kendzia (41) (center), during a soccer match between SG Kreba-Neudorf and TSG Hainewalde during a village festival in Hainewalde, Germany on August 10, 2024. Andre Kendzia lives in Kreba-Neudorf and works as a pump mechanic in the “Schwarze Pumpe” opencast lignite mine operated by LEAG, Germany's second-largest electricity producer. Many jobs in the region depend on LEAG's lignite mines, which, like all energy companies, must phase out coal-fired power generation by 2038. “If that goes under, everything here will go under and only the old will remain,” tells Kendzia. As a supporter of the AfD, Kendzia fears structural change in the region. A scene at the Old Town Festival in Görlitz, Germany on August 24, 2024. Anass Halime, 28, loads the moving van with the equipment of his IT business in Görlitz, Germany on August 21, 2024. Due to racist attacks, Halime has decided to move to Koblenz in western Germany. Halime was born in Morocco and moved to Görlitz in 2018 to study computer science. In 2022, he founded his own IT company in Görlitz. According to Halime, despite his professional successes, he has repeatedly been confronted with racist incidents, including verbal abuse and physical attacks. Due to these experiences, the presence of the AfD and the shortage of skilled workers in the region, he decided to move to West Germany with his wife. The AfD's election results were an important factor in choosing their new city. The “washing trough regatta” on the Neisse River in Görlitz, Germany on August 24, 2024, marking the border between Germany and Poland. At the regatta, German and Polish teams compete against each other with self-built rafts. The speed and creativity of the raft is judged. The Jewish cemetery in Görlitz, Germany on August 25, 2024. 323 Jewish inmates of the “Biesnitzer Grund” concentration camp who were murdered by the SS in the years 1943-1945 are also buried in this cemetery. Klaus-Peter Jerga (left) guides a tour through the technical monument and open-air museum "Bagger 1452" in Görlitz on August 6, 2024. Jerga voted for the left-wing party for many years, but now calls himself an AfD supporter. The Neisse River in Görlitz, Germany on August 25, 2024, marking the border between Germany (left) and Poland (right). A villager protests alone with a banner in front of an election campaign event of AfD politician Sebastian Wippel at the restaurant German Oak in Tetta, Germany on August 20, 2024. The banner reads #niewiederistjetzt (#never again is now). The hashtag serves as a call to take a stand against anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia and alludes to the crimes of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust. Dr. Gottfried Hanzl (left, behind red jug), 74, a general practitioner, during a family celebration in his garden in Oderwitz, Germany on August 11, 2024. The border control at the German-Polish border in Görlitz, Germany in the early morning of August 24, 2024. In October 2023, stationary border controls were set up at the border with Poland to make it more difficult for human traffickers and illegal migrants to enter Germany. Pastor Andreas Fünfstück and musician Johann Schulz during the blessing in the service at the church in Tetta, Germany on August 25, 2024. Four visitors from the village came to the service. The Christian church has a difficult standing in Saxony due to its socialist past. Some pastors choose not to take a political stance so as not to upset their congregation, unlike Pastor Fünfstück, who prayed for democracy, candidates, and voters during the service. In his sermon on charity, he commented on the AfD's election campaign event at the Deutsche Eiche restaurant in Tetta a few days earlier and asked: "What if as many people came to the church service as came to the Deutsche Eiche restaurant on Tuesday?" The closing fireworks of the Old Town Festival in Görlitz, Germany on August 25, 2024. Last year the fireworks had to be canceled due to price increases, this year it could take place due to a sponsorship of a local brewery.
The Görlitz region used to power the former East Germany with its coal mines. But as the economy collapsed, the far right rose. In cities like Görlitz, hard on the Polish border, change has disturbed old ways and touched off new insecurities. As east Germans vote, a region in decline is searching for answers on the political extremes.
The far-right Alternative for Germany party long ago stepped from the political fringe and into the mainstream in Görlitz. 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.

Before the state elections in Saxony, Ingmar traveled through the district to photograph a socio-political portrait of the region.