“The glass production has given rise to a culture that still exists today”

Helena Kater: The concept of structural change is widely recognised. It is primarily a political term, but also one associated with a great many very strong emotions. It is about a new beginning, change, fears for the future; the desire to preserve the status quo clashes with a move towards an uncertain future. This is accompanied by feelings such as nostalgia and conflicts between different generations. But all of these are merely aspects of what structural change can entail. Specifically, today’s discussion will focus on the Lusatia region. We will be looking at the large district town of Weißwasser, which is situated in the north-east of Saxony amidst a heathland-rich lignite mining landscape. It was once an industrial town known primarily for coal mining and the glass industry. Weißwasser now faces major structural – but above all – social problems, which manifest in political conflicts and, consequently, in social discontent. My fellow student Juliette Holtz addressed these problems and opportunities in an interview with Antonia Mertsching, a former member of the Saxon State Parliament for Die Linke. They discussed about structural change in Weißwasser, but above all about opportunities and ideas for this town, as there are many of them. My name is Helena Kater; I will be hosting this interview and would like to warmly invite you to this conversation, the subject of which could not be more topical.

Antonia Mertsching: A development like this in a town’s history isn’t something you come across in everyday life; rather, these are processes you follow over the years and stories you tell. And when it comes to Weißwasser, you can tell both the story of people moving away, of decline and of being a ‘losing’ town, as well as the story of a new beginning, of hope and of ‘we love living here’. So it’s about regaining a sense of purpose in Weißwasser, and I believe that if you have a great time in Weißwasser as a young person or a child, then you’ll be happy to come back once you have career prospects – prospects that aren’t limited to working in the coal industry, but which offer a variety of jobs or opportunities for self-employment. It would, of course, also be great for Weißwasser if there were a facility there – either an institute or a special training programme. That would in turn encourage other young people from other areas to come to Weißwasser to undertake their training, so to speak. Then perhaps they’d discover the town for themselves and decide to stay. There really ought to be an overarching strategy for how the other towns – the major regional centres such as Zittau, Löbau or Weißwasser – should relate to this German Centre for Astrophysics. And there’s also the idea of setting up a children’s and youth academy in Weißwasser. The idea is to develop Weißwasser as a place to live. And if you’re developing a town as a place to live, then it’s also essential to maintain a certain range of cultural and leisure activities, and to give local people the opportunity to get involved and get things off the ground. Unfortunately, there are conflicting trends here. On the one hand, Lusatia is being flooded with money from the federal government, but the local authorities – for example, in the north of the Weißwasser district, where Weißwasser itself is also in a very poor financial position – have absolutely no funds to access these resources. Or rather, there were courageous mayors who did so in the past – despite the budgetary situation – whilst the current town council and the current mayor no longer have the courage, or perhaps simply don’t see the need. They’d prefer to scale everything back or scrap it altogether, and one wonders: what on earth is their vision for Weißwasser? How do they intend to develop Weißwasser any further? And that’s where we simply need people who will say: ‘No, we have a future here; we live in a beautiful town and we’re not going to cut all the funding for our clubs.’ It’s sad that there now seems to be a majority on the town council that lacks both courage and a vision for the town.

Juliette Holtz: I’ve also spoken at length with the Telux people about young people, so I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter. What sort of activities might go down particularly well with young people? And what’s missing? Obviously, one factor will be that, as far as I know, there isn’t a university here. Of course, you can do certain training courses, but if you go to university, some people would probably leave the city after school anyway. But yes, what’s the situation there?

Antonia Mertsching: Yes, it always depends on which age group of young people you’re talking about. I think young people aged between 12 and 19 want to have their own opportunities to take part in outdoor activities. They want there to be things going on, spaces where they can let off steam somehow, or woods they can wander through. Or simply hanging out at home in front of the screen with a good internet connection – so having a mobile and a good internet connection. On the one hand, that’s important, and then, I think it’s perfectly fine for young people to move away to do an apprenticeship or a degree somewhere else. Then it’s a question of having prospects back in Weißwasser. I reckon that if you have a great time in Weißwasser as a young person or a child, then you’ll be happy to come back, I think, especially if you’ve got job prospects that aren’t just limited to working in the coal industry, but which allow for a variety of jobs or self-employment. It would, of course, also be great for Weißwasser if there were a facility there – either an institute or a special training programme. That, in turn, would attract other young people from other areas to come to Weißwasser and, so to speak, ‘have to’ do their training there. And then perhaps they’d discover the town for themselves and decide to stay, just as happens to many students who go somewhere and then simply end up staying in the town where they studied or completed their training. There’s a lot that could be done there, but even in this area, politicians are somehow cutting back on what’s available in Weißwasser – especially for young people. As members of Die Linke, during the five years I was in the state parliament, we also campaigned extremely hard to ensure that young people’s voices were heard. They then somehow cobbled together this lovely initiative where they go to schools and give presentations on structural change – but that’s not how you engage young people. Above all, they come up with some half-baked idea and then don’t provide any funding for it at all. I believe today’s young people have different expectations when it comes to getting involved, and we should recognise that and give them the opportunity to do so. Even if you have to work with young people differently than with adults, or deal with different circumstances. But that doesn’t mean they’re somehow irrelevant. Right now in Weißwasser, young people are mainly struggling with lessons being constantly cancelled. And the headteachers are really going out of their way to ensure that, instead, they can, for example, get a taste of the world of work or whatever. That’s how they’re trying to make up for the cancelled lessons. So there are people in Weißwasser who are really committed, and it’s actually just them – everything keeps getting messed up for them all the time. I don’t want to go on about it here, but if things were already frustrating at times in Weißwasser, they’re really bad now.

Juliette Holtz: Then there are these schemes that get a lot of media coverage. Take the telephone hotline, the ‘Returnee Helpline’, for example. The focus is on the idea that even if you leave to do your training, you’ll come back later. Maybe to be back with your family, or because living costs are lower or because you’re closer to nature. What were your thoughts on that at the time? Is it used a lot, or is it more of a side issue?

Antonia Mertsching: This ‘returnees’ helpline is a brilliant idea. There’s even a song about it, written by Bernadette La Hengst when they ran a similar project in Weißwasser in 2019 to mark 100 years of the Bauhaus – because Weißwasser also has a Bauhaus history. People often ask us about it, as Weißwasser was in the media a lot due to structural change. And then this ‘returnee hotline’ kept coming up in conversation. I’m not even sure if it still exists today, or whether the mayor is still running it. But people do ring it. And what I think is noteworthy – or something that urban development might perhaps take into account or even focus on – is that we might not always just be reaching young families who want to come back, but that we might also be reaching people over 55 who’ve had enough of living in a big city, or who want a change, or who’ve heard of Lusatia and said: ‘Right, I’m off there now.’ And that’s actually something we could specialise in specifically, or – I mean – you can develop a strategy for everything and say: Ah, so it seems to be the baby boomers and those who came after them; some of them are quite mobile, and they’re saying: ‘I’ll spend my twilight years somewhere else, my final working years or my retirement.’ And it’s not a bad thing to have older people in the city, either. But then, of course, you also need to provide them with opportunities to integrate into city life and give them the chance to get involved. That could be a strategy too. I mean, we’re getting older and older, in our society as well. You can’t always expect young people to come here. People usually don’t want migrants. There are, after all, plenty of them in places where there are still lots of families around. And if you then say, OK, we need an influx of people here, and it doesn’t really matter at first what sort of influx that is, then you just have to take a look: OK, who’s coming here, or who’s interested in coming here, and how can we encourage that?

Juliette Holtz: As we’re also very much involved with the media in this project – how are towns like Weißwasser reported on, and how do you perceive that? I always get the feeling there’s a certain construct of East German identity that runs through political communication and, of course, through the media. Or how is that perceived in the town at all?

Antonia Mertsching: As for how it’s perceived in the town, well, I think people do get annoyed whenever yet another article or video or whatever comes out that portrays it as somehow bleak and hopeless. That’s just not how it was, or how it is now, because as long as there are people who have hope and who get involved, that’s what matters – and you can connect with that straight away when you come to Weißwasser. So anyone who wants to get involved and make a difference will immediately find clubs, people, all sorts of things they can take part in. That’s why this sort of negative reporting is, well, obviously, always a bit of a punch in the gut. There were also plenty of great articles, though – especially lots about Telux and the people involved there, or Torsten Pötzsch, the former mayor, who was very committed and so on. Sometimes it’s just that – I’ve read articles where you know full well, ‘OK, a journalist has just managed to speak to three people,’ and then you realise why that particular story is being told again, but why they haven’t really dug any deeper.

Juliette Holtz: Does the glass industry’s history still play a role today in shaping the town’s identity and that of its people?

Antonia Mertsching: Well, I found it amusing that many of the older women I met in the town – it felt like one in three, really – told me they’d done an apprenticeship in glassmaking. So even though they work in completely different fields today, it still plays a part in their personal stories. The town has the Glass Museum. That means, of course, that history is being preserved there too. There are now plans to develop the Gelsdorfhütte site – which is basically a ruin by the station – into a space where this history is also showcased. Unfortunately, though, there are also people in the town who don’t think it’s that important. We had quite a few heated debates about it in the town council – whether to fund the development of the Gelsdorfhütte, including turning it into a visitor attraction and a centre for local history. And of course there’s the Telux site, and I once saw this really cool DVD made by schoolgirls who’d portrayed the history of Weißwasser and its glass industry, where you can actually see just how much of it there was – it’s hard to even imagine. After all, there are also some really cool Wilhelminian-style houses in various parts of Weißwasser – just as you might find in Dresden’s Neustadt or Leipzig’s Connewitz, or wherever there are cool buildings to live in, not just prefab blocks. The history of glass could play an even bigger role in the town of Weißwasser. Especially as the landscape lends itself to it. After all, the landscape itself made glass production possible thanks to the coal and the sand. And attempts are being made to tackle this through various projects. Christine Lehmann from the Glass Museum is also involved in this. She’s working with other cities across the region to tell the story of glass production. I’m glad that’s being done. So it’s not just coal that defines the region; above all, it’s the glass industry that has shaped it too.

Juliette Holtz: I’ve also picked up on that a bit – from this political perspective, so to speak, it’s not necessarily a lack of money, because the funds are there, but they’re being allocated incorrectly. Or perhaps what’s lacking now is the courage or the genuine will to change things and get something off the ground.

Antonia Mertsching: Yes, I think there’s a lack of perspective on this from the political side. I mean, the glass industry basically just died out in the 90s, even though, for example, in Weißwasser they produced glass that you could drop on the floor without it shattering.

Juliette Holtz: That super-strong…

Antonia Mertsching: Yes, that’s absolutely brilliant. And now we’re busy with the coal phase-out, and naturally we’re trying to come to terms with this phase-out culturally as well. And what will remain of the coal phase-out? It will leave holes in the landscape, and we’ll have to see if we can still fill them with water. And if things go well, we’ll somehow end up with lovely lakes for swimming. But of course there are also climatic consequences – water shortages and so on – so there are still quite a few follow-on costs. But glass production has also brought with it a culture that still exists today, one that’s sustainable and makes quite an impression in that respect. Yet there’s actually too little happening in that regard to tell this story – both for ourselves and for people from outside who are interested and who might then come to Weißwasser as tourists. And I don’t know if that’s recognised; I think… Renewable raw materials – or rather, long-lasting raw materials, sorry – never really play a significant role in the capitalist exploitation system, and I reckon that if you don’t have to invest money in something you believe is already a thing of the past, well, then politicians are always happy.

Juliette Holtz: I also had the feeling that, even when it came to Telux – I mean, in media reports – it’s always been portrayed in a positive light, of course. But then it’s a lot of, well, it’s difficult. I mean, I think funding’s only secured until 2026 for now.

Antonia Mertsching: It’s obviously quite something, this huge site and the way it’s used. I mean, there’s the craft workshops, then over there at the front is the canteen, then the job centre, and Telux at the back. Playgrounds are being built on the site. I’ve absolutely no idea what’s actually on the site. And then there’s the Lausitz Festival, which takes place there too. And these are always opportunities when people come onto the site and where, of course, you can tell the story of the site in much greater depth. It would obviously be really cool to develop a guided tour there. But who’s supposed to do that? And that brings us back to the various levels of federal responsibility, because the cultural funding for running the Telux comes from the state, supplemented by the local council. And if, say, some AfD-led majority on the town council says: ‘No, we don’t want that anymore’, then the state might still provide funding, or the federal government might step in and say, ‘Yes, the Lausitz Festival’ – in which case they’ll just have to come up with another way to keep it going. But it’s precisely these different levels of funding and responsibilities that make it so complicated – and yet it all looks so cool from the outside, with people saying, ‘We’re coming to Weißwasser to check out the Telux’ or ‘We’re going to the Socio-Cultural Centre’, or even people coming from surrounding villages in the region and so on. And the people in the town just behave like that. I sometimes think to myself, well, they should at least ignore it – they don’t have to go there or leave it alone – but actively destroying it, that’s just stupid. So, yes, everyone always wants to live in the big cities. But I actually find life in these small places much more interesting. You’re closer to people. You also have to deal with neighbours with whom you don’t share the same views. But somehow you’ve got everything you need. I’m not that sort of person – I don’t feel the need to go to a bar every evening. But even that’s possible in Weißwasser, or you can always pop out if you fancy experiencing something different. I think it’s a shame that life in a small town isn’t seen as modern, even though it’s so lovely and you have so many opportunities to fulfil your potential. There simply needs to be more of it again.

Juliette Holtz: Infrastructure is an issue too. In theory, you can get to Berlin or Cottbus and so on quite quickly. But I’ve experienced it myself – when I was thinking about travelling there this week, I’m in Berlin at the moment, and even with replacement services, the journey still takes nearly four hours. So those are the kinds of issues we’re talking about.

Antonia Mertsching: Yes, that’s true. But I mean, the train link is supposed to improve things. Of course, that means construction work has to be done first, and that’ll take a while. I know. But it’s always the same – for instance, when I’ve driven back to Weißwasser from Dresden and taken the motorway down past Bautzen, that used to be three-quarters of an hour on the motorway and three-quarters of an hour on country roads. It’s quite something, the way the villages are – at first they’re really close together, and then the distances get bigger and bigger, and you really do get the feeling you’re driving to the very end of Germany. And it’s just got its own charm. So Weißwasser is surrounded by forests, and it’s just – when you look out over it and all that – it really is… I just think it’s lovely, and all the lakes there too. Whenever I was out and about there, I always thought, Wow, everyone’s off travelling somewhere else, and then the Lonely Planet says, ‘Yeah, you can go and see these really cool landscapes,’ but this is where you live.

Juliette Holtz: Yeah, and being so close to Poland is actually pretty cool too.

Antonia Mertsching: Sure, one minute you’re in a different country.

Juliette Holtz: Perhaps just to look a bit into the crystal ball, so to speak, when we think of Weißwasser in 2035 or thereabouts. What would be the hope there? What might you hope has changed? Or what should, of course, stay the same?

Antonia Mertsching: As for Weißwasser, the hope is certainly that more people will decide to move to this region undergoing transformation and live there, or that people will say: We’re coming back, we’re going home, we’re going to our families, back to our roots too – and that perhaps they won’t always be looking for the best-paid job, but simply for the high quality of life that you can somehow have there. That people also make the most of the opportunity to organise themselves and shape their own lives – something that’s simply much easier to do in a place like this, in a small town. Not just to take advantage of all the countless opportunities the big city has to offer, but to create opportunities themselves or organise them with others.

Helena Kater: I think, in conclusion, we can say that this conversation between my fellow student and Antonia Mertsching has shown that, whilst there is a range of problems in Weißwasser, there is also an incredible amount of potential in this town and these regions undergoing structural change – potential for what can be made of them in the future. It is clear that those who are striving to find solutions and visions for towns like Weißwasser must not have obstacles placed in their path, as structural change must always come from the people who benefit from and need the local structures. Money alone is therefore not the solution; even though Lusatia receives financial support, this alone does not yield results. It takes people to develop and shape the projects in the first place. Without ideas, money remains a resource without purpose. I would like to thank you very much for listening and hope that you have taken something away from this discussion and perhaps even have your own ideas or projects that you would like to realise in such regions in the future.