{"id":343880,"date":"2025-08-14T12:50:21","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T12:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/343880\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T12:50:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T12:50:21","slug":"how-two-contrasting-cities-tell-the-german-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/343880\/","title":{"rendered":"How two contrasting cities tell the German story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cYou\u2019re going to Chemnitz?\u201d say my German friends in surprise. \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They are even more astonished to hear that <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/lifestyle\/arts\/article\/3294516\/german-far-right-hotbed-chemnitz-looks-shed-past-2025-european-capital-culture?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"noopener\">this Saxony city is a 2025 European Capital of Culture<\/a>. If a low profile German town is to be one of the two or three European Union cities chosen each year for this honour, surely it should be somewhere like well-preserved Rothenburg ob der Tauber, in <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/magazines\/post-magazine\/travel\/article\/2113835\/medieval-road-trip-bavaria-salzburg-mad-king-ludwigs?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"noopener\">Bavaria<\/a>. World War II gave that jigsaw-puzzle-pretty city a relatively gentle cuffing, whereas it flattened industrial Chemnitz.<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Rothenburg ob der Tauber, in the south of Germany, is a well-preserved warren of medieval housing surrounded by a city wall with varied gate towers, where every turn on a random walk brings new pleasures. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/8ff053ba-fa7f-477a-a4d0-5a9a8e7fb2dc_fde9aca4.jpg\" title=\"Rothenburg ob der Tauber, in the south of Germany, is a well-preserved warren of medieval housing surrounded by a city wall with varied gate towers, where every turn on a random walk brings new pleasures. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley\"\/>Rothenburg ob der Tauber, in the south of Germany, is a well-preserved warren of medieval housing surrounded by a city wall with varied gate towers, where every turn on a random walk brings new pleasures. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">But, as the promotional team in the converted factory now functioning as Chemnitz\u2019s reception centre explains, the point of the programme is not to give further profile to either the pretty or the pretty successful, but to promote the diversity of European culture, especially that which is undeservedly less well-known. All the more urgent for a city that has come to be known in recent years for anti-immigrant protests and some of Germany\u2019s staunchest support for the far-right Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland party.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">And despite its pre-reunification history as the decaying East German state\u2019s Karl-Marx-Stadt, a hard-to-love centre for technology that lagged ever further behind the West, Chemnitz turns out to have no shortage of culture of its own to present.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The slogan of Chemnitz\u2019s vast programme of cultural events for 2025, with visiting orchestras, art exhibitions, a bike race and much else still to come, is \u201cC the Unseen\u201d, to be read both as an admission that the city remains little known and an exhortation to discover what\u2019s been missed.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Chemnitz\u2019s early 20th century industrialisation did not come without elegance, and this century-old former factory is now that Saxony city\u2019s Industrial Museum. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/bf19f11e-ccfe-4d6d-8892-18d6b77472d3_f70cc4e3.jpg\" title=\"Chemnitz\u2019s early 20th century industrialisation did not come without elegance, and this century-old former factory is now that Saxony city\u2019s Industrial Museum. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley\"\/>Chemnitz\u2019s early 20th century industrialisation did not come without elegance, and this century-old former factory is now that Saxony city\u2019s Industrial Museum. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley\u201cIt is a good motto,\u201d says Gisa Gruner, the retired teacher who is my guide, \u201cbecause Chemnitz is always at the back of the queue. In <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/magazines\/post-magazine\/travel\/article\/3204272\/colditz-country-castles-saxony-eastern-germany-are-historic-spectacular-and-remarkably-free-visitors?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"noopener\">Saxony<\/a>, Dresden and Leipzig come first.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cYou\u2019re going to Chemnitz?\u201d say my German friends in surprise. \u201cWhy?\u201d They are even more astonished to hear&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[122200,122211,2182,122202,38587,20321,122210,115460,36249,2000,299,122205,1824,122204,122207,118571,122201,122209,122203,122199,111389,122206,122208],"class_list":{"0":"post-343880","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-alternative-fur-deutschland","9":"tag-ansbach","10":"tag-audi","11":"tag-august-horch-museum","12":"tag-bavaria","13":"tag-chemnitz","14":"tag-chemnitz-industrial-museum","15":"tag-dresden","16":"tag-east-germany","17":"tag-eu","18":"tag-europe","19":"tag-european-capital-of-culture","20":"tag-germany","21":"tag-karl-marx-stadt","22":"tag-kasberg-prison","23":"tag-leipzig","24":"tag-otto-dix","25":"tag-red-tower","26":"tag-robert-schumann","27":"tag-rothenburg-ob-der-tauber","28":"tag-saxony","29":"tag-villa-esche","30":"tag-zwickau"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115027209377812963","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}