“Don’t you see they’ve gone mad in Berlin?”

The issue is that almost no roads lead to Hirschfeld Elba-Elster and the only reason to put a pin in its name on the map is the election result of last Sunday, on which the European elections and the municipal elections here took place simultaneously.

The anti-European party Alternative for Germany (AfD) obtained 60% in the former and 52% in the latter, an increase of 17% compared to the previous one. This is the municipality with the most votes allocated to the AfD in Brandenburg, one of the eastern federal states that, until 35 years ago, was part of communist Germany, the GDR. In this region, in which thousands of public positions are distributed, most of them honorary due to the small population, AFD is the organization with the most votes,

“And why do you miss it so much?” asks a local woman who tends to the only bakery in the village. Don’t you see they’ve gone crazy in Berlin? You should interview them, not us.

A quick tour shows that cats roam as freely as the AfD posters. No posters of any other political party appear to alternate with signs that ask to drive at a lower speed to protect the kittens. The AfD posters are screaming Against “refugee abuse”In a district where the absence of refugees is conspicuous.

“We are fine here and we don’t want them to come and ruin it for us,” a retired man argues kindly as he parks his bicycle to talk to the foreigner in a rented car. The woman with the showy hydrangeas, however, immediately disappears behind the curtain when it is revealed that he is a journalist. “He says he would like to know why they vote so much for the AfD here,” a DHL delivery man acts as an intermediary for whom they open the door. “And if not, who were we going to vote for, if they are the only honest people left?”, a man’s voice replies, without appearing.

Fear of inflation

“It’s a question of economics,” explains Jana Hesslich, head of a local bakery.The prices have increased a lot and people cannot afford it.». His hearty onion cake has increased in price by more than 50%, he calculates immediately. “If we keep going like this, we’ll only eat bread with butter and cabbage salad,” agrees one of his customers.

No national newspaper reaches the bakery, which also serves as a kiosk. Only the regional ‘Sächsische Zeitung’, which has a four-column headline about a 9-year-old girl whose body was found in the forest, and the ‘Lausitzer Rundschkau’, which reports on the districts of Elsterwerda, Bad Liebenwerda and the Elbe. The escalator can be bought, and the cover of which warns that “EU threatens to impose punitive duties on Chinese electric cars.”

The region loves the Tesla megafactory with which Elon Musk has endowed them and which leaves a good tax in their coffers. In the editorials of both newspapers, the recently introduced national conscription registration process is very timidly criticized with a view to a new mandatory military service.

“Merkel kept them under control, but now the people at the top are kind of out of control…”, sums up her political analysis, Helga, who has gone to the hairdresser to reserve an appointment for Friday. She is confident that the AfD will reach the German government in time to stop the ‘heating law’, which forces companies and individuals to change their systems and which will cost her and her husband more than ten thousand euros. “We really need someone sensible to come to this country and keep order.”

“Jurgen, come here!” compels the following interview with a man registered in neighbouring Schradenland, three and a half kilometres away, who is passing by. «Tell him why it’s a good idea to vote for the AfD!». After trying to turn away he adds, “I have voted for other parties before and nothing changes, things only get better with the AfD,” and protests against the misuse of the public budget to pay for the arrival of refugees. This father of eight children, who does not work for health reasons, spends, in addition to his sick leave allowance, 2,000 euros a month from the so-called Kinderzell, 250 euros per child, which any family in Germany receives automatically.

Fear

“Life is great here and we don’t want to lose it,” he adds, as he resumes his path and gets lost behind the late Baroque church, which was completely renovated after reunification in 1997. It is an Evangelical parish. The Catholic parish merged with Heidenfeld and Röthlein in 2008 due to a lack of faithful. «I would say more people go to church now.», comments a customer of the pharmacy attached to the temple complex. “And this is because of the war: when the war is near, we need to pray more.”

In the town it is viewed with disdain that Germany is sending arms to Ukraine. From Hirschfeld, Brussels is a long way off, while nearly all elderly residents, two-thirds of the census, learned Russian at school and know that Moscow is no plaything.

According to sociologist Stefan Mau, East Germany would remain a separate political and cultural region from the rest of the country in the long term: «Normalization This does not mean eliminating differences, but accepting themUnless at some point they became considered traditional regional specialties, as is the case with Bavarian.