eleven female dancers of his youth dance group Piccolo Theater Cottbus impress with their figures on stage. “Move on Move Over”, based on the book “Momo” by Michael Ende, deals with how man deals with time, war and migration. For the theatre’s director, Reinhard Drogla, the play is the highlight of the upcoming season. “Young people,” he says, “are our hope.” And there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic, despite the political situation in Germany.

Cottbus is a medium-sized city in Brandenburg, where elections are due to be held on September 22 – with the far-right AfD leading the polls with 27%. Recently in the elections in Thuringia and Saxony the right-wing populists gathered more than 30% of the vote – in Thuringia the AfD even came first. What does this mean for the country’s cultural landscape? Drogla admits that all this worries him. But “we must not be afraid!”

The AfD warns of the dissolution of the state

The AfD has long made its presence felt on the German political scene. And now far-right party politicians hold key positions in all areas – including culture. The AfD categorically rejects multiculturalism, warning that immigration leads to the dissolution of the state and that Germany is “losing its cultural face” due to excessive tolerance.

Contemporary historian Rolf-Ulrich Kunze considers this attitude to be a danger to the coexistence of citizens: “The AfD does not see culture as something that unites people, but abuses and instrumentalizes culture in order to divide people and turn the one against the other,” Kunze tells DW. There are obvious similarities between how the AfD views culture and how the Nazi party viewed it. “The Nazi party’s conception of culture was racist, authoritarian and identity-obsessed. All this is also present in the AfD’s perception of culture – even if adapted to our times.”

A report on immigration

Arnold Bissinger is the head of Bieskov Castle in the eponymous district of Brandenburg. The Oder-Spree Museum currently has an exhibition entitled “Vom Kommen und Gehen” (“For those who go and come”). The exhibition tells the stories of people who were forced to come or leave the area – refugees, people who left the German Democratic Republic or returned from West Germany, and many more.

According to Bissinger, such a report would probably not go down well with AfD politicians. And probably the party responsible for culture will want to limit the funding of the museum.

“Anything that is not purely German,” says Bissinger, “has no hope with the AfD.” But if the AfD is really planning what it has announced, then “one in two will have to go.” The head of the museum does not hide that he too is worried about the elections in Brandenburg.

Fear of the actions of far-right groups

Art and culture that opposes racism, right-wing populism and the Far Right are often targeted by the Right, as sociologist Ute Karstein from the University of Leipzig points out. The AfD, for example, moves against cultural centers and institutions that criticize it. It is a cultural war: “It is claimed that left-wing extremism is spreading in these centers. And then the AfD goes with this accusation to the municipal councils and asks for an explanation as to why these institutions continue to be funded in violation of the principle of neutrality. And then the local councilors feel so insecure that they actually cut off the funding,” Carstein explains to DW.

In Thuringia, where the new government is currently being formed, cultural centers are already discussing how to respond to the influence of right-wing populists, as author Daniela Danz reports. The vice-president of the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Letters fears that the future of programs such as the “Denk Bunt” project is uncertain.

For now the AfD focuses on promoting tradition and boosting pride in the homeland. The modern is demonized. And in this cultural landscape there is no place either for critical theater or for multicultural orchestras – and certainly not for left-wing night clubs like “Kalif Storch”. The Erfurt club is a meeting place for various drag artists, while many queer workshops are also organized. Many young people between the ages of 18 and 30 also gather there to dance. “We are naturally a nuisance problem for the Right,” says Hubert Langrock, the club’s owner. Langrock is waiting to see how things go – even considering the possibility of his shop being attacked by far-right groups in the area, as has already happened at the Autonomous Youth Center in Erfurt.

Edited by: Giorgos Passas