Section:GDN 1N PaGe:38 Edition Date:190830 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 29/8/2019 18:46 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Friday 30 Aug ust 2019
(^38) World ▼ Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer
at an event in Leipzig. Poor election
results could sink her hopes of
becoming chancellor PHOTOGRAPH:
FLORIAN GAERTNER/PHOTOTHEK VIA GETTY
German state elections
Far-right AfD fi nds rich seam
in city clinging on to coal
Philip Oltermann
Cottbus
I
n the 30 years that have
passed since the fall of the
Berlin Wall, Doreen Mohaupt
has experienced both the
downsides and the upsides of
German reunifi cation.
Born in the coal-rich Lusatian
Lake District, close to the Polish
border, the 43-year-old was raised
in an area that was once the pride of
the socialist East German economy,employing about 80,000 workers.
When the old economic order
collapsed, so did the local coal
industry: her father, a construction
manager, was one of the 90% of
the workforce who suddenly found
themselves without a job.
But for Mohaupt, the structural
upheaval that followed the cold
war was a challenge she came to
relish. An urban planner employed
by the city council in Cottbus, she
now leads a team of 37 civil servants
focused on regenerating the area.
“Of course, everyone’s naturalinstinct is that they don’t like
change,” she said. “But I think the
attitudes of my generation of East
Germans are diff erent, especially
among women. I sometimes feel
we are like these amoeba that can
always adjust to their surroundings.”
Many women like Mohaupt have
adapted to a changing economy – so
much so that women in Cottbus
earn 17% more than men. But it is
the voting intentions of the men
left behind by the collapse of the
coal industry that may dominate
Sunday’s regional elections , which
could see the rightwing populists
Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)
emerge as the largest party here.
Deindustrialisation has left
a generation of men feeling
emasculated, angry and open to the
policy messages of the far right.
With Germany set to phase out
coal power by 2038 in a move away
from fossil fuel, the Cottbus area is
facing the loss of a further 20,000-
22,000 jobs directly and indirectly
linked to the mining sector.
In Brandenburg and Saxony, the
AfD have realistic hopes of topplingthe centre-left Social Democratic
party and centre-right Christian
Democratic Union as the strongest
force. In Cottbus alone, the AfD
has been forecast to triple its vote
since 2014, largely because it has
recalibrated its anti-immigration
message to rail against the
government’s green agenda.
“Coal is Lusatia’s last anchor,” said
Marianne Spring-Räumschüssel,
the AfD candidate for the region.
“We need industry, because without
industry there won’t be jobs in
administration either .” Her party
opposes the phase-out altogether,
and she said she mistrust ed the
government’s promise to cushion
job losses with €40 bn (£36bn) in
structural funds for hard-hit regions.
Her own story shows how some
workers in declining industries
have been able to adapt and thrive.
Once a sales manager in the area’s
other major industry, textiles,
she benefi ted from several local
initiatives aimed at helping women
to retrain. From one such initiative
came East Germany’s fi rst all-female
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