Alternative für Deutschland’s “Citizens’ dialogue” at Groß Kreutz on 12.02.2025: A view from across Bochower Str.
by Dwaipayan Chowdhury
It was around dusk on 12.02.2025 when I arrived at the small parkland area at the intersection of the Potsdamer Str. and Bochower Str. in the municipality of Groß Kreutz (Havel), Brandenburg, Germany. It is an area that I pass by often when going to supermarkets and one which bears a symbolic foundation stone of Groß Kreutz. That evening I went there to respond to a Signal invitation from my friends in Groß Kreutz which read “Gemeinsam gegen die Normalisierung des Faschismus (Together against the Normalization of Fascism)”. It was a call to assemble and publicly dissent against a Bürgerdialog (Citizens’ dialogue) hosted by the Potsdam-Mittelmark wing of the far-right, high-capitalist, and Neonazi political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) at the Groß Kreutz Strohhaus (a community center accessible to local residents and located opposite the parkland where I was at, right across the Bochower Str.). The occasion was AfD’s strategy to promote its candidates for the upcoming German federal elections (on 23.02.2025), which comprised of an already elected member to the Brandenburg state parliament and its candidates for the 60th and 61st constituencies. Thus, my going to that parkland that evening was, at least for me, a gesture of asserting what our assembly was about: to occupy a wee bit piece of land to dissent against, and be concerned and angry about, the circulation and normalization of Nazi vocabularies and insignia that have gained currency in the villages of Groß Kreutz – a serene countryside, where we reside.
The Strohhaus is a popular cultural centre in the area which the AfD has used for its local propaganda strategy in this former GDR (German Democratic Republic) suburb. It is to counter the AfD’s “taking over” of the Strohhaus that the anti-fascist collective Gemeinsam Groß Kreutz (Together Groß Kreutz) – comprised of local inhabitants from different walks of life and disparate political affiliations (such as anarchists, radicals, liberals and even the conservatives) - have held meetings together there regularly to report and act on the growing fascist tendencies in the vicinities. It was to assert the collective’s anti-AfD stance that we assembled outside in the cold. Viewing the Strohhaus from across the Bochower Str., which was patrolled by the police, as the AfD meeting was in progress inside it, and the Groß Kreutz Heimatmuseum looming beside it, I was confronted with certain questions – am I, with an Indian passport, qualified to “interfere”, even if in my limited capacity, in questions concerning German voters? Did I belong there? What was at stake in the non-dialogue, a non-correspondence, between the “German” citizens inside and outside the Strohhaus, divided by the gulf of a Bochower Str. which was administered by the police? Is citizenship always reducible to a national epithet ?
With these questions concerning me regarding whether I am qualified to assert my (political) voice in Germany, where my residence-permit expires in the next four months, I was pulled into what was happening around me – as if, I was already a part of a dissenting mise en scène. Someone at the back-end started playing Die Ärzte’s Ein Sommer nur für mich, as the daylight faded and we grooved ever-so-slightly in temperatures below zero! The children found an occasion for a playground party. Some had brought make-shift placards, hurriedly prepared, to make certain popular anti-fascistic statements, (such as, for example - “Menschenrechte statt rechte Menschen”, “Liberté, égalité, FCK AFD”, “Alle zusammen gegen Faschismus” etc.), some of which has been regrettably corporatized today. Nevertheless, as I was traversing our gathering, reciprocating smiles with and sharing the deep-seated concerns in the eyes and voices of my fellow-travelers, I came across a couple of friends who had adorned themselves with colorful costumes very theatrically harping upon the mini-carnivalesque emphasis of our togetherness. As if, they were a couple of very bright spots emanating warmth and gratulation in an otherwise grey dusk. One of them wore a clown-like motley dress, wearing a long headgear and a placard hanging from neck, eating apples, while propelling our sloganeering like an orchestra-conductor. Another sporting dark glasses, an over-the-top wig, party-hat, and sitting with a wine glass and a king-size placard welcomed us to anticipate the approaching summer, the warmth of trust, as against the cold fearmongering brewing across the Bochower Str. Meanwhile, one of the protest organizers climbed atop a raised platform to address us to recall why we were there, to which one from among us shouted lungs-out to briefly recall the horrific “Vergangenheit” (past) of the aspiration for a German ethnostate. Amidst all these, I could see certain figures stepping out from inside the Strohhaus, smoking cigarettes in maverick-like postures, glossily attired, and like wannabe film-stars were basking in our audience-ship. Their gestures of whiteness, so to speak, proclaimed - proud to be a would be Neonazi star. As I stood there struck dumb by these boastful attitudes, a high-school teacher from the nearby village of Schenkenberg discussed with me about the local AfD fandom among his students, and the hatred that is spread around as social knowledge among the adolescents here through digital platforms like YouTube and TikTok. It is the question of “fandom” that haunted me as the AfD’s “Citizens’ dialogue” ended and its members dispersed with the haughty postures of stardom. As we dispersed I walked the dimly lit road back to the Groß Kreutz train station. I took the stretch alone and felt ruffled, for I could not make out whether certain figures approaching me, or, crossing by me, in that chiaroscuro were us or them. Very briefly I kept missing heart-beats as I walked passed groups of neighborhood young men. But, I finally reached the train station unscathed, whereupon I discovered a sticker of “WHITE LIVES MATTER” in the waiting enclave. I took that down. But now I ask : Was I ethical in taking that down? Was I too violent?
Dwaipayan Chowdhury
was awarded his PhD from the “International Research Center – Interweaving Performance Cultures” at Freie Universität, Berlin (2023). He has studied in Berlin, Amsterdam, New Delhi and Kolkata. His selected publications include the ones in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Stage Directors (forthcoming), The Brecht Yearbook / Das Brecht-Jahrbuch, Asian Theatre Journal, Lateral Journal and Rupkatha Journal. He has been a recipient of student and early-career research and bursary awards from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München-University of Warwick, Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Amsterdam, Freie Universität Berlin, Gesellschaft für Sinn und Form, Association for Asian Performance, International Federation for Theatre Research. He has contributed to as a speaker in many international conferences and workshops. He has also worked as a teaching assistant faculty at the department of Theater and Performance studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.