There has been a lot of understandable anguish about the election results in the German Länder Thüringen and Sachsen on Sunday.
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Frankfurt (Oder)
Land: Brandenburg
Population: 58200
Visit: 31 Aug 2022 and a couple more visitsSat at a huge and largely abandoned multi storey car park at the station, observing German Bundespolizei illegally check passengers arriving from Poland. The town has infrastructure for twice the population.
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Ebersbach-Neugersdorf
Land: Sachsen
Population: 11400
Visit: 14 May 2023The quiet border road to Czechia, and the disproportionately large and quiet station.
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Bad Muskau
Land: Sachsen
Population: 3800
Visit: 18 May 2023The town square is impeccably restored, but there is no-one there. It is Łęknica - across the Neiße in Poland, and with the metal roofs of the Polenmarkt that can be seen in the 2nd picture, where all the life is.
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Horka
Land: Sachsen
Population: 1700
Visit: 18 May 2023Horka has the most modern railway line to Poland (pictured - double track electrified line), but the town does not benefit from this - the best it gets are small diesel trains to Görlitz and Cottbus.
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Forst (Lausitz)
Land: Brandenburg
Population: 17900
Visit: 23 May 2023You can see plenty of money has been invested in Forst in the physical infrastructure, but the streets and station are eerily quiet. There is a rail connection to Poland, but it has a poor service.
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Seifhennersdorf
Land: Sachsen
Population: 3600
Visit: 9 Jun 2023 (and 18 Aug 2022)The railway station was burned out in an arson attack (note burnt out roof in the drone pic) - but after 8 years of rail replacement buses the town got its trains back - and that led to a street party!
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Eibau
Land: Sachsen
Population: 4500
Visit: 9 Jun 2023The line from Eibau to Seifhennersdorf has been out of action for more than a decade - a bush grows through the tracks. Eibau is connected to Dresden still, but the station was very, very quiet when I was there.
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Fohrde
Land: Brandenburg
Population: 1400
Visit: 11 Mar 2024An impeccable modern train, a rebuilt and disabled-accessible station, but no people. And very little life along the route I cycled towards Brandenburg (Havel)
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Kodersdorf
Land: Sachsen
Population: 2300
Visited: 3 Aug 2024 (having visited previously in 2023)The old railway station is charming, but run down and up for sale, and demand so low it is now a request stop
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Hirschfelde
Land: Sachsen
Population: 1500
Visited: 3 Aug 2024The old power station at Hirschfelde, north of Zittau. This was once a museum, but even that closed due to low demand. The town square is eerily quiet, with many abandoned shops.
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Holzhau
Land: Sachsen
Population: 500
Visited: 4 Aug 2024The tiny railbus waits at the Holzhau terminus. Despite it running hourly there were so few people on a summer weekend the passenger numbers only just reached double figures when I took it.
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Wriezen
Land: Brandenburg
Population: 7200
Visited: 21 Aug 2024Despite it being a warm sunny evening, the town centre was deserted by 7pm. Many shops are empty. The railway line towards Berlin (Wriezener Bahn) stands derelict.
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Marienberg
Land: Sachsen
Population: 16600
Visited: 28 Aug 2024Trying to get here by public transport was a bit of a mess, as the railway line has been left to fall into disrepair. Better connections for towns like this could help bring the life back.
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Deutschkatharinenberg
Land: Sachsen
Population: 120
Visited: 28 Aug 2024It is more about the border than the place here - the road to Hora Svaté Kateřiny is calm, and everything is orderly. Just as it is the whole way down the valley from Deutschneudorf to Olbernhau in the Erzgebirge.
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Linthe
Land: Brandenburg
Population: 900
Visited: 31 Aug 2024This anti-Green, pro-Russian poster next to a electric car charging point greeted my arrival in Linthe - by bike. I was the only customer at the cafe-guest house in the village.
/ends
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Niels Chr. Nielsenreplied to Jon Worth last edited by
@jon A lot of East German people seem to be very friendly to Russia, even after having been brutally "liberated" by them and exposed to some 40 years of "socialism", which left them with a rundown and heavily polluted country?
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@jon Well, that bit I can explain. Shortly before the fall of the Wall, Frankfurt was "boomtown" of the DDR. That's why a lot of the street layout, the infrastructure seems to big. A city with shoes it cannot fill anymore.
I grew up as mostly a teen in the city throughout the 90s and sometimes I wonder if constantly feeling lost was brought upon by this mismatch.
But yeah. These places are quiet and empty most of the time. There certainly is no mass migration of foreigners there.
But it also fosters this feeling of being 'forgotten'. And by now, the city is not only too large in a way, but all the shiny new stuff from 30 years ago is now 30 years old and rarely gets renewed because there is no money.
Which leads to the weird effect that the failure of late stage capitalism is visible. Contrary to general belief, most places that look dilapidated in Frankfurt are the remnants of the early 90s.
I could rant about that town forever...sorry.
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There is a lot of misinformation floating around.
Another factor might be a sort of fear or submissiveness which was „learnt“ by older generations (and now is brought back as a result of Ru behaviour, bragging and propaganda) while not enough trust was built in NATO, etc.
Importantly, I don‘t think it‘s a mayority at all, rather a louder minority. And many young / educated have left the rural regions.
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GreenSkyOverMe (Monika)replied to Niels Chr. Nielsen last edited by
@nichni You mean the terrible terrible 40 years when everybody had a job, nobody was homeless, rent and bread were cheap and daycare/preschool/kindergarten/after school care were free and guaranteed? Before the reunification when the entire economy collapsed and half the population became unemployed, rent went up by a factor of 10 while wages didn’t and we became free to travel but many didn’t have the money for it?