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Germany's Far-Right Village

'It's High Time People Woke Up'

By Philipp Wittrock in Reinhardtsdorf-Schöna

Support for the far-right National Democratic Party quadrupled in local elections in the eastern state of Saxony on Sunday. In the village of Reinhardtsdorf-Schöna, one in four voters chose the NPD. SPIEGEL ONLINE paid the town a visit and found that the far right has deep roots in this picturesque spot.

Olaf Ehrlich looks exhausted as he winces at the sun from the terrace of his restaurant "Zirkelstein." He folds his arms across his green polo shirt, which bears the name of his establishment, shrugs his shoulders, exhales into his moustache and says: "I never thought it would happen again."

It sounds like resignation, even though Ehrlich won't admit that he feels that way. He's the mayor of Reinhardtsdorf-Schöna, a picturesque eastern German village that has just made nationwide headlines because one in four of its voters chose the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) in local elections in the state of Saxony on Sunday.

The NPD derives many of its views from Nazi ideology and Germany's domestic intelligence agency describes it as "racist, anti-Semitic, revisionist".

Four years ago, in the last local elections, the NPD got 26 percent in Reinhardtsdorf-Schöna, and it has also scored well over 10 percent here in regional, federal and European elections in recent years.

Only an independent voters' group which Ehrlich belongs to got slightly more support. The far-right party swept aside Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats and the Left Party. The Social Democrats and Greens are virtually non-existent here.

Idyllic Bastion of the Far Right

Reinhardtsdorf-Schöna, population 1,600, is a bastion of the NPD which is now represented in all 10 regional councils of the state of Saxony where the local elections were held on Sunday. Across Saxony, support for the NPD quadrupled from the last local elections.

Given its voting record, the village has attracted journalists before, and this time is no exception.

Most residents say they are fed up with the attention and hastily add they are also sick of the NPD. "I lived through the war so I certainly don't vote for something like that," said an elderly woman struggling up the main street with her walking stick.

A hundred meters down the street is the village store, which is also a combined bakery, butcher and post office. The young woman behind the counter gives a welcoming smile which turns into a frown as soon as the NPD is mentioned. "I'm not saying anything," she says.

A grey-haired man standing at his garden fence isn't much more forthcoming. "Tomorrow the papers will just say we're all right-wing extremists, we've seen that before," he says.

A hiker walking through the village jokes: "We haven't seen a Nazi yet." And as he walks off he turns round and says: "It's a bad business."

Reinhardtsdorf-Schöna, tucked in the hills of the Sächsische Schweiz (Saxon Switzerland) region near Germany's border with the Czech Republic, lives off tourism.

There are signs everywhere pointing to bed-and-breakfasts and holiday apartments that hug the slope on either side of the street. The risk of being labelled a Nazi village can only be bad for business. But the tourists are still coming here. Many of the pretty houses have "No Vacancy" notices up.

The NPD's Popular Plumber

NPD member Mario Viehrig doesn't have any trouble filling his holiday apartments, says Ehrlich. Viehrig, a computer scientist born in 1964, has represented the NPD in the local council since 2004. He attended one village fete wearing a T-shirt with the words "Fit For The Reich" emblazoned on the front.

Viehrig and his NPD comrade Michael Jacobi, a plumber, are firmly rooted in the community. Jacobi is well-liked in the village. "He's probably installed the heating of 80 percent of people here," said Ehrlich.

A second later a van drives past with "Jacobi Heating Installation" on the side. Ehrlich waves. The driver isn't Jacobi. "It's a bit difficult in the village," Ehrlich explains. He said an elderly woman recently said to him: "If I don't vote for him he may not come and repair my boiler."

The NPD is at the heart of the community in Reinhardtsdorf-Schöna. A few tired slogans against price hikes, growing poverty and the "madness" of pay increases for members of parliament in Berlin are all that it takes to give the party a sizeable and reliable voter base, says Petra Schickert of KBS, an organization that advises local communities on how to combat racism.

The NPD scores well in most communities of Saxon Switzerland, and it's no longer the case that people just vote for the party to vent their protest at the performance of the mainstream parties, says Schickert.

Getting core NPD voters to switch their allegiance back to democratic parties is virtually hopeless, Schickert adds. The aim has to be to mobilize people who haven't been voting at all. Sunday's turnout in Reinhardtsdorf-Schöna was just 50 percent.

Schickert's organization has invested a lot of time in Reinhardtsdorf-Schöna over the last two years. "We had the impression we were much better positioned there now," she says with an air of surprise at the NPD's strong showing.

Chanting 'Sieg Heil'

The office helped to reopen the village's youth club in February. It had been closed since 2002 because far-right skinheads had held parties and concerts there which regularly culminated in "Sieg Heil" chants. "We want to deprive the NPD of new membership," says Schickert, adding that she hopes the club doesn't get taken over by the far-right scene again. One young man recently reported that skinheads had already been looking around it.

Schickert's office supports a local citizen's alliance against the far-right, but the group isn't getting much support in the village.

The people of Reinhardtsdorf-Schöna will be voting again next year in a village council election. Based on Sunday's result, Ehrlich's Free Voters alliance is just 1.6 points ahead of the NPD, raising the prospect that the village may become the first in Germany to elect an NPD mayor.

Olaf Ehrlich says he will throw in the towel if the far-right ever does as well again as it did on Sunday. "Do you have any idea what I'm going though here?" he says. "It's high time people woke up. They really must."