Germany’s Political Front Lines Are Shifting to the Lower Rust Belt

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(Bloomberg) — At the Hambach open-pit mine on the edge of Germany’s former industrial heartland, the earth shakes as a wheel pit heavier than the Eiffel Tower chews through the terrain, mining brown coal for power plants like the Eiffel Tower cluster. paper mills in nearby Düren.

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In this small town of 90,000 people, 40 kilometers west of Cologne, Germany’s challenges collide and it is in places that have been successful like Düren that the battle for Germany’s future is being fought. Political campaigns ahead of the February 23 snap election will begin in earnest this weekend when the ruling Social Democrats and the far-right German Alternative – a growing party in the region – hold party conferences.

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“There is a lot of uncertainty,” said Helge Peter Herrwegen, local head of the IGBCE union, which represents miners and paper workers and has been a powerful voice in the region. “Negotiations with our members are difficult.”

From energy insecurity to wasteful production, Düren is part of the structural changes affecting the European economy. As Germany runs out of local gas like those in Hambach, blue-collar workers worry about their job security as employers struggle to compete with rivals from the US and China.

The effects of Germany’s industrial decline have been hard to ignore in North Rhine-Westphalia, the country’s most populous region. Large employers such as Thyssenkrupp AG and Ford Motor Co. they cut staff, while years of aggressive political programs and the failure of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government have shaken confidence.

The AfD – in second place in the national election – is using fear in communities like Düren, which will bear heavily on Germany’s net-zero ambitions and where the party’s call to abandon international climate agreements is heard. Even if the move is legally and economically plausible, the prospect of more of the same from mainstream groups does not appeal to concerned locals.

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In Düren, the AfD received more than 4,000 votes in last June’s European elections, just 132 shy of Scholz’s Social Democrats – once the trusted voice of the working class.

While the shift to the right is most pronounced in the former communist east, a blow to the centre-left is seen with the SPD and the Greens losing ground to opposition parties, including the new left-leaning BSW, across Germany.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, cities such as Duisburg – where steelmaker Thyssenkrupp is cutting 11,000 jobs – and Bochum – still reeling from the closure of an Opel car plant in 2014 – have become targets for the AfD, as it seeks to strengthen its base in the west. In Germany.

“The people of these cities are waking up to the damage caused by politicians,” said Christian Loose, the AfD’s economic spokesman in the region. As it fights for power in the state at the end of the decade, the party wants to weaken the influence of organized labor. “The management of the unions supports the climate goals and they no longer represent the demands of their members,” he said.

Voter frustration has various sources in Germany. In the east, it is caused by reunification and feelings of being left behind have been reinforced by the influx of migrants. Uneasiness in the west stems from threats to comfortable living standards from reduced competition, and environmental initiatives have become targets as they are seen as damaging to local businesses.

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“The AfD is exploiting concerns in areas where industry is struggling to adapt,” said Jens Südekum, professor of international economics at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf. He predicts the situation will intensify as Germany accelerates emissions reductions this decade to meet climate targets. “For concerned voters, the AfD offers a very different lesson.”

In Düren, economic recovery feels far away, and the Schoellershammer paper factory is a symbol of the area’s struggles.

Previously it depended on three weekly train shipments of lignite briquettes from a producer near the Hambach mine. After Angela Merkel’s administration shut down plans in 2019 to phase out coal, the plant installed a gas-fired furnace to generate the steam it needs to produce. That loyalty didn’t last long.

Russia’s moves to cut gas supplies following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 have sent fuel prices soaring and put Schoellershammer in trouble. The industry adapted to burning its production waste to reduce energy costs, but challenges remain. European regulations and a sluggish economy cause continuing headaches.

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Declining job prospects are particularly divisive among young Germans, and the AfD has targeted this group through social media, such as TikTok. In a recent video, Martin Vincentz, the 38-year-old head of the AfD caucus in the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, called on the next generation to reject the status quo and “complete political change in this country.”

“We notice that there is a lot of talk on social media and less and less in companies,” said Matthias Dürbaum, a Düren-born worker representative on RWE AG’s supervisory board, referring to the unions’ declining influence in politics. to assemble themselves.

The party has sparked outrage by promoting the deportation of migrants and calling for Germany to leave the euro. Following comments from foreigners and leading figures using banned Nazi slogans, three chapters in the eastern provinces were described as right-wing extremists and monitored by the domestic intelligence service.

In Düren, Ernst Müller and his wife Yvonne tried to prevent young people from straying into nationalism. The former European middleweight champion runs a gym and trains several young people, giving encouragement and a sense of purpose to children from different backgrounds.

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Sitting in his office, filled with photos and memorabilia from his life in the late 1970s, Müller proudly points to an award he received from the city for helping integrate non-German youth into society. The couple says Germany needs to come together to get out of its crisis.

“We’re like a family here,” Yvonne said, stressing the club’s stance against far-right influences seen in other mixed martial arts clubs across Europe and the US. “We take care of each other and help each other in difficult times. We are very proud of what these children continue to achieve.”

At city hall, Mayor Frank-Peter Ullrich tries to find solace in history. In the office of the Social Democrat, the mural highlights the tragic events from the Thirty Years’ War to the Second World War, when the Allied forces developed the city to avoid bloody house-to-house fighting. Society was always going back.

Although the drama is low now, he admits that delays in funding to help ease the region’s transition away from coal have fueled public skepticism after towns and swaths of 12,000-year-old forest were cleared for coal mining.

“People gave up their homes to develop the economy,” Ullrich said, referring to villages that were destroyed to expand mining. “The agreement was for stable jobs and development. That trust ends.”

—Courtesy of Tom Fevrier.

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