Capital of Culture in Europe – Chemnitz: forgiveness of sins in the Capital of Culture Year

“Scheen” was the “Grand Opening Show” on January 18 in Chemnitz, the somewhat dark-looking Marx-Nischel arched up by a dome of light and transparent stage tent. The west feuilleton felt disturbed by such ancient communist monumental scale, unsuspecting whether the Karl-Chemnitz soul. After all, it is the second largest portrait bust in the world, made by a St. Petersburg sculptor named Kerbel from the Soviet country with the stubborn brother status to this day. With this bronze head at least Chemnitz is world leaders. What becomes a landmark and what is not, you can neither arrange by city council decision nor by feature.

It’s just a shame or not that at the end of the show, a single private drone prevented hundreds of planned drones to climb fireworks and draw figures in the evening sky. That might have been a triumphal tale and would therefore have contradicted the gesture of the application. The fact that Chemnitz was awarded the German applicant cities at the end of 2020 has to do with a buzzword that only discovered the Saxon CDU, which was the victim of the victim in the damper election year 2024: humility! Chemnitz had won the experienced Hungary Ferenc Csák, in his homeland he was already secretary for cultural state and director of the National Gallery. In 2010 he led Pécs to the European Capital of Culture and knew that the jury attaches importance to the idea of ​​development and funding.

Competitor Dresden suspected that too. But the courtly residence could not jump over its shadow with gingerbread hearts and the slogan “Neue Heimat Dresden”. “Dresden already has everything,” joked, who has been in office for four years, joked Chemnitz program manager Stefan Schmidtke. Chemnitz never wore the nimbus of a chosen city in front of him like the Eitle Dresden. The first guiding principles for the cultural capital application presented in July 2018 did not focus on confirming a success story, but chose the motto “breakouts”. It was about the base and width and the revival of a feeling of city, which often hidden with loss experiences, actual scandals, but also Kolportage and denunciations.

Yes, Chemnitz also sinned, but not seven times fatal. With benevolent consideration, it was more likely to be the circumstances that, according to Brecht, “are not so” and have sinned on the city. Which then had to go over seven bridges, past the Nischel past the bridge road, and dark years.

So you can’t blame chemnitz, nor was there any envy and resentment. But already hate, which at the end of August 2018 in the right riots on the “Nischel”. There were conflicts on the edge of the city festival, as a result of which a German-Cuban was stabbed. A Syrian asylum seeker was later convicted of manslaughter. Right -wing scenes mobilized via networks immediately for mass demonstrations. On the edge of one of these marches through the city, a dear normal Chemnitz threatened to the author of these lines, after the seizure of power, “you are the first to go through the chimney”.

Chemnitz also tried to free and rehabilitate with his successful capital application. And yet there is the “Pro Chemnitz” citizens’ initiative, whose chief Martin Kohlmann has now become the head of the most radical right -wing party Free Saxons. They attempted to disturb the opening day with an embarrassing home clay, but also to disturb the opening day with rushing speeches. But only about 150 followers followed the call, hardly a tenth of the counter -demonstrators. Because there are also democracy initiatives and refugee helpers such as the “Network for Integration and Future EV” in Chemnitz. The cultural capital year includes a “European Workshop for Culture and Democracy”, a documentary center on the NSU complex or discussions about the emergence of nationalism in the 1920s. “We are working towards the business ability of democracy,” said program director Schmidtke.

From a lowland perspective, Chemnitz forms the gateway to the Erzgebirge, which only works as a closed society. One can speculate about mental relationships. Unlike the ore mountains, which is difficult to get up again and again after the ore mining expires, chemnitz originally comes out of the defensive. The deadly sin or not, the industrial city was part of the early turbo capitalism. It is no coincidence that the visitor and information center of the cultural capital moved into a former hall of the famous Hartmann machine and locomotive factory. And the biggest attraction of the opening day was the Hartmann-Lok ​​»Hegel«, which was surrounded by tens of thousands, whose 20 tons were drawn 25 meters on the rope by athletic citizens’ groups.

More than a hundred years ago, Chemnitz was still considered the city with the highest gross domestic product per capita in Germany. A wealth, but for the majority it was not accompanied by sins. Because the workers who created this wealth in the later 19th century justified the call of the “Red Saxon”. A saying that is still common today is: “What is developed in Chemnitz is traded in Leipzig and pronounced in Dresden”.

The therefore proletarian-colored industrial basis of this prosperity has only played a subordinate role in the past 30 years of Saxon CDU dominance. The Zweckverband Industriemuseum, headquartered in Chemnitz, was difficult. And it lasted until 2020 before a state exhibition devoted itself to this legacy. In relation to injuries, for which the Chemnitzers cannot do anything.

Coming from a positive city narrative, we are with those “notches in city history”, which already mention the guidelines for the 2018 Cultural Capital. “Chemnitz is still looking for identity and self -image,” it says. Not only left-wing Chemnitzer think that the city deals too little with the Nazi era and its history. The extensive annual program takes steps in this direction, at least relating to the combination of art and society. Because this phase led to a traumatizing disaster for a city that was just as innocent as Dresden.

The National Socialists had already expanded the city of automotive and mechanical engineering in 1939 as a focus of the armaments industry. But the British-American bombing in the early 1945, most difficult to do this on the night of March 5, not only did this, but also followed the British strategy of “Moral Bombing”. Around 4,000 people were killed. Not only numerous companies were destroyed, but also the city center 80 percent and a quarter of the housing stock. The wound is still visible. Neither the attempted development of a major socialist city nor solitary simulated prosperity architecture after 1990 were able to bring Chemnitz a center and an organic structure.

The unpuffered martine management competition after the 1990 economic and monetary union led to an unprecedented second de-industrialization. Chemnitz lost a fifth of his inhabitants, today there are still 250,000. One is called “City of Modernity”. In addition to the university, there are primarily spectacular exhibitions in the urban art collections or in the contemporary gallery. In the meantime, the GDP per inhabitant is again 5000 euros above the Saxon average.

But the loser image does not give way so quickly. “I come from Karl-Marx-Stadt /I am a loser, baby, original Ostler” Singen Kraftklub. Even after the successful start of the cultural capital, some statements in Dresden cultural circles still spoke the derogatory “they can’t”. Hangled on small breakdowns or ambiguities. On the other hand, city citizens and even colleagues in the press center could hardly believe that foreigners are so interested in them, even bring empathy. A previous failure, but the other. For Chemnitz standards, this was extremely relaxed, yes cheerful. Where else is the stone-dry federal stone powers still receive with such applause, yes, cheers like the nichel show?

Where should it go? “Get out of Chemnitz?” Is asked, an opera performance discusses life variants, a theme block even debates opportunities for modern climate capitalism. Ferenc CSák renewed his expectation that was formulated six years ago that around half of the residents could be reached. Then the glass would be half full, added Mayor Sven Schulze. A record value! And if you become aware of his previous misjudgments in the course of the Cultural Capital year 2025, you should remember the repentance of wisdom: you love the problem children! When the Chemnitzer no longer want to appear.