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A sense of abandonment could make Saxony-Anhalt the first state government to be solely led by the AfD. But the party’s hollow promises will only make a dire situation worse
It was in the summer of 2004 that I stopped understanding my own people. I was standing on a sweltering market square in Aschersleben, the town where I was born, picturesquely situated on the northern edge of the Harz mountains. A large crowd of angry people had gathered in front of a stage to protest about the welfare reforms (or, as many saw them, welfare cuts) introduced by the Social Democratic-Green coalition government under chancellor Gerhard Schröder. They chanted “We are the people!”, waved handpainted placards and seemed utterly beside themselves.
I had gone to secondary school nearby, volunteered at the local hospital and interned at the local newspaper: I knew this place. And yet I found myself bewildered. What, exactly, did these deeply aggrieved people want – standing on a freshly renovated, almost idyllic market square? Weren’t things going reasonably well for them? Where did this burning resentment toward the west come from? Wasn’t the east-west divide supposed to be disappearing by now?
Marcus Böick is assistant professor in modern German history at the University of Cambridge
