Ilaria Zucchini – The effects of political alternation on urban development. Chemnitz European Capital of Culture 2025

Chemnitz, which was Germany’s European Capital of Culture (ECOC) in 2025, is Saxony’s third-largest city. Although little known outside Germany, Chemnitz nevertheless made the front page of The New York Times in August 2018 following several consecutive days of far-right riots.

This development led the team in charge of the ECOC bid to highlight the significance of the presence of neo-Nazi groups in the city. Whilst this is nothing new in the city, the 2018 riots served to bring the violence of the far right in Chemnitz into sharp focus. The second bid booklet, published that same year, therefore made the fight against the far right and the promotion of democratic values the central theme around which the cultural events of 2025 would be organised. However, the national and local elections in June and September 2024 resulted in the far-right AfD party gaining political dominance both in Saxony and on the city council. Moreover, elected representatives from the Pro-Chemnitz and Freie Sachsen groups – who had openly participated in organising the 2018 riots and who oppose the values championed by the ECOC – (once again) secured seats on the City Council in 2024.

My doctoral research therefore examines the interplay between far-right parties and public cultural policy. I am analysing the positions of various political parties regarding the European Capital of Culture (ECOC), as well as changes in budgets and regulatory frameworks relating to the cultural sector and their impact on the activities of artists and organisations in Chemnitz. The aim of the project is to gain a deeper understanding of the cultural policy programmes of emerging far-right parties in Germany, such as Freie Sachsen and the AfD.