There is a big city in eastern Germany that many Europeans have never heard: Chemnitz. Now Chemnitz is a European capital of culture. It surprised a lot of people. Loss of industry, emigration, an aging population, right -wing extremism … Chemnitz has many problems. As a capital of culture, the city is now looking for its strength.
As part of the GDR diet, Chemnitz was renamed Karl-Marx-Stadt. Today, the city with a long industrial history has its old name. The theme of the capital of Culture of Chemnitz: “c the invisible!”
What is a “capital of culture”? 40 years ago, an idea is from Greece: each year, a “European city of culture” is elected. The initial priority was to protect the common cultural heritage: the title was allocated to cities with a lot of ancient culture, such as Athens, Paris, Amsterdam and Florence.
However, this has changed since Glasgow 1990: today, priorities also include urban development, citizens' participation and cultural diversity. More and more cities with economic and social problems submit offers. The title “Capital of Culture” aims to start a new start. The European Union supports the process of transformation with funding. Chemnitz won the title for 2025 – with Nova Gorica in Slovenia and Gorizia in Italy.
Sophie and Cathleen are two of the more than a thousand volunteers for the capital of Chemnitz culture. “There are a lot of people who complain,” notes Sophie, “who says that nothing will change here anyway. But that's precisely where you have to intervene and say: of course, you can change something, lending a hand yourself.”
A third of chemnitzers are over 60 years old. Sophie helps the “Dancing Neighbors” project. Alexandra Takats directs the “team generation” as a project manager. The capital of the organizers of culture strive to hire all the strata of the population – whether young or old, born in Chemnitz or elsewhere: “We have many socio -cultural projects where the objective is to bring together the neighborhoods, so that new arrivals with migration training can mix with people who live here for a long time.”
You have to look at this in the context of the 2018 riots. Chemnitz made the headlines at the time. After a fatal stab, a right -wing extremist crowd beat people who seemed to be foreigners. The ultra-right scene is still present in the region today.
Chemnitz is also a bastion of AFD – an Eurosceptic party with a strong suite – and a critical attitude towards the project of the capital of culture. AFD municipal councilor Ronny Licht: “Chemnitz is a divided city: the suggestion is that” the bad guys “on the right fringe are not part of society. So people continue to speak of a” civil society “which must become noisy. It does not unite, it divides.”
The organizers of the capital of culture see things differently. Project Manager Building, Pascal Anselmi: “If you try to actively get involved in your neighborhood, is culture for me. The desire to move something, to change something, to create something new. Do not be passive – say rather: it's my city, I participate, I participate. And, of course, is democracy in the best sense of the word.”
It is also the point of view of the sociologist Ulf Bohmann from the University of Chemnitz technology: “The Bid Capital of Culture in Chemnitz has clearly focused on social issues.
One of the most important culture projects in culture is called “living neighborhood”. There are festivals in garages and parks, money for community projects where people can rethink their neighborhoods according to their own ideas … The cultural recipe Chemnitz is simple: get closer to people, join – and discover culture in daily life.
