GENNA, Germany (AP) — When electrical engineer Pritam Gaikwad first moved to Jena in 2013, she was impressed by what the eastern German city had to offer: a prestigious university, top research institutes, and innovative technology companies, world leaders. their field.
Eleven years later, the Indian native took a more serious view.
Gaekwad, 43, said, “I am really worried about the development of the political situation here. Jenna is in the eastern German state of Thuringia, which has elections on September 1.
The far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, currently leads polls with around 30 percent support, far ahead of the center-right Christian Democrats (21%) and the center-left Social Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Schulz (7%). is ).
The AfD's anti-foreigner stance is a cornerstone of its campaign, causing concern among businesses such as Genoptic, Gaikwad's employer. The company, which supplied lens assemblies for NASA's remote rover mission to Mars, employs 1,680 people in Jena and more than 4,600 globally.
Jenoptik, one of Jena's few internationally successful businesses, depends on being able to attract and retain a highly skilled workforce, much of which is based outside of Germany. Genoptic CEO Stephen Treger says the rise of AFD is making it more difficult.
Most potential employees tell Trager that while they would love to work for Genoptic, they won't take the job there because they don't want to live in a state dominated by a hard-right party that is immigrant-friendly. Or ostracizes other minorities. As members of the LGBTQI+ community.
Traeger, a Jena native who studied in the U.S., told the AP that he hopes that after the election, “we will still be as free, independent and democratic a country as we are now.” So this is what we need.
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This story, supported by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, is part of an Associated Press series covering threats to democracy in Europe.
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Germany is already facing one. Lack of skilled labor at large Experts estimate the country needs about 400,000 skilled immigrants each year as the workforce ages and shrinks. Long considered Europe's economic powerhouse, Germany was recently ranked world class. Worst performing major advanced economy by the International Monetary Fund.
Thuringia is one of Germany's poorest states, a legacy of communist rule in East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Most young people, especially women, go elsewhere in search of opportunities, a brain drain to the more affluent West that began in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, and has not stopped since.
The increase in AFD is due to high inflation. Immigration. In 2023, Germany took in 1.9 million new residents, while 1.2 million people left the country permanently, for a net migration of 663,000. Although only a minority live in Germany's poorer eastern states, anti-immigration sentiment runs high.
The AfD's Thuringia branch is particularly radical: its regional leader, Bjoern Hoecke, has described the Holocaust memorial in Berlin as a “monument of shame” and called on Germany to remember its past. Made a “180 degree turn”, including the Nazis. In 2020, the branch was placed under official surveillance by the German domestic intelligence service as a “proven right-wing extremist” group.
Towns and villages in Thuringia have been plastered with AfD election posters with the slogan “Summer, Sun, Migration” and a picture of a plane named “Deportation Airline” intended to fly them all. Which the party and its voters do not want. In Germany
Nonetheless, the AfD tried to downplay the issue it prefers to call “remigration” in an interview with the AP.
Immigrants are those who have no right to remain in that country and no prospect of remaining because there is no reason for security status, because their flight or their migration is prohibited by applicable laws. There is no reason. Torben Braga, deputy speaker of AfD Thuringia and member of the Thuringian state parliament)
Immigrants with work permits “certainly won't be affected,” he said.
Gaekwad, a legal immigrant, has a slightly different experience. Some of the racism she has experienced is subtle, some is outright discrimination, but it is always painful and humiliating.
Like the supermarket cashier who brings in the groceries for all the other customers and wishes them a good day, only to throw Gaekwad's bag down with his purchases without a word.
Or the elderly neighbor she greets in German who stops her one day to say, “It hurts me when I see so many people living here in Jena with strange skin and hair colors.”
Above all, Gaikwad was shocked when she took her daughter, now 10, to a playground and heard a little German boy say he was making body powder for her. is “that you may become a common man again.”
The AfD is particularly popular in rural areas – and it is 70% of the population in Thuringia – says Axel Salhizer, director of the Institute for Democracy and Civil Society in Jena.
“Even when there is no majority yet, there are quite a few minorities who vote for the AfD, either to express their protest or to express an openly anti-immigration and anti-liberal stance,” he told the AP. to do,” he told the AP.
When it comes to Thuringia as a place to do business, Salhizer said, that means not only working expats will think twice about moving there, but “potential investors.” Also ask yourself if they want to locate their company or their branch business here.”
“It is a big problem for the region, if there is a perception that significant segments of the population not only tolerate anti-immigration and anti-diversity stances, but also support them,” he added.
Oh A recent survey of over 900 German companies The Institute for the German Economy also showed that a majority see the AfD as a threat to the security of skilled workers and investment in the region.
Last year, businesses and individuals founded Cosmopolitan Thuringia, a grassroots network to promote tolerance, diversity and “indivisible human rights”, which now has more than 7,940 members.
Among them is Jenoptik, which makes a point of promoting the diversity of its workforce, featuring its foreign employees on posters at its Jena headquarters.
Gaikwad says Genoptic's open-mindedness, her great job and the support of her friends are what keep her alive, despite the racism she and her family have experienced.
“I strongly believe in democracy, in the goodness of people,” he said.
Genoptic CEO Tragar Gaekwad and every other international employee he can retain in Jena is grateful.
“We need employees with creativity. We Thuringians are a creative bunch, but we won't be able to do it all by ourselves,” Traeger said. “We also need people who come from other parts of the world, who have different ideas, different beliefs, different skin colors or whatever.”
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Kristen Sopik and Pietro DiCristofaro contributed reporting.