Thuringia goes to vote: Why this state election is pivotal

Thuringia is home to Weimar: a city brimming with cultural heritage, including writers Goethe and Schiller, and the world-famous Bauhaus school. Weimar lent its name to the first German democracy — the Weimar Republic — because the founding National Assembly first met here in 1919.

However, just outside the city lies the memorial for the Nazi's terrible Buchenwald concentration camp. Buchenwald was the largest concentration camp within Germany's pre-war 1937 borders; hundreds of thousands of imprisoned people from all over Europe passed through it during the war.

Thuringia is also famous for its town of Eisenach, where reformer Martin Luther translated the Bible into German, for its St. Mary's Cathedral in the state capital Erfurt, as well as for its abundant nature, including the famous Rennsteig hiking trail and the Thuringia Forest.

Thuringia is located at the center of Germany: it has no external borders. Surrounding it are the states of Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt to the east and northeast, Lower Saxony to the northwest, and Hesse and Bavaria to the west and south.

The Economy: Optics, bratwurst and nature

Thuringia is a relatively small federal state with only around 2.1 million inhabitants.

Its economy is dominated by small companies. Larger companies include the internationally-renowned optics manufacturers Zeiss and Jenoptik, in Jena, and car manufacturers such as Opel, which has a production site in Eisenach. That is also where the East German Wartburg brand was built during communist times. 

Popular hiking destinations are Thuringia's low mountain range, and Hainich National Park, one of Europe's largest closed beech forests.

Oberhof is not only a well-known winter sports resort in Thuringia, it is also the birthplace of numerous Olympic and world champions in biathlon and Nordic combined. 

Thuringian Bratwurst has been designated a protected trademark by the EU, and a  "German Bratwurst Museum" opened in the town of Mühlhausen in 2006 to celebrate the sausage's history. Additional famous Thuringians include composer Johann Sebastian Bach, born in Eisenach; encyclopedia publisher Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus, who worked from Altenburg; and top model Eva Padberg, who was born in this state. 

A structurally conservative state

Following German reunification in 1990, Thuringia struggled economically and was burdened with high unemployment, especially in rural areas. In 2005, unemployment was still at 17.1%. In 2024, however, it stabilized at only slightly above the national average at 6.1% (the national average: 5.7%). Thuringia's capital Erfurt is its largest city, with around 210,000 inhabitants. This is followed by Jena, with a population of 110,000, and Gera, with 95,000.

Politically, the Free State of Thuringia was a safe bet for the conservative Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) for many years after German reunification in 1990. From November 1990 to December 2014, four CDU politicians governed the state. The longest in office was Bernhard Vogel, a West German who had previously been Minister President of Rhineland-Palatinate, and had served as head of government in Erfurt from 1992–2003.

Since 2014, Bodo Ramelow of the Left Party has almost continuously served as head of government. He currently leads a minority government with the SPD and the Greens, which the CDU seems to tolerate regarding important issues. 

Thuringia: an AfD stronghold

However, right-wing extremist centers formed in Thuringia soon after German reunification, particularly in rural areas. Their worst expression were the Neo-Nazi "National Socialist Underground" (NSU) terrorists in Jena. Between 2000–2007, they murdered ten people: nine ethnic minority immigrants and a policewoman. After police identified the perpetrators, two of them committed suicide in November 2011. Today, Thuringia is one of the strongholds of the right-wing populist to right-wing extremist party Alternative for Germany (AfD). The leader of the AfD Thuringia parliamentary group, which entered the state's parliament in 2014, is Björn Höcke. He belongs to the hard-right, nationalist wing of the AfD, and is considered extremely influential. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution now classifies the Thuringia branch of the AfD as a confirmed far-right extremist group.

This article was originally written in German.

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