<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/27/the-nazis-drove-bauhaus-out-of-town-now-the-far-right-is-waging-another-war-against-the-movement>
"The city of Dessau, where the Bauhaus design school flourished a century ago,
catapulted Germany into the modern era and revolutionised global design.
It is also where the Nazis drove the avant garde movement out of town and
attempted to crush its utopian principles. A hundred years later, another
high-stakes culture war over its legacy is looming.
The EU’s biggest democracy will face one of the riskiest tests of the postwar
period when Dessau’s home state of Saxony-Anhalt goes to the polls on 6
September. In what would be a first since Adolf Hitler’s time, a far-right
party could win an absolute majority and take power in one of the 16
Länder.
The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is running first in national polls and is
poised to capture about 40% in Saxony-Anhalt. It has widened its double-digit
lead among the state’s 1.8 million voters by homing in on the cost of living,
fears around immigration, and the whipsaw effects of deindustrialisation and
depopulation.
But the party’s programme also lays out a vision for Germany with Saxony-Anhalt
as a foothold, in a plan oddly fixated on Bauhaus. “The state government is
running an image campaign called ‘think modern’ that seeks to derive the
identity of Saxony-Anhalt from Bauhaus,” reads one passage.
The AfD said it is countering with “a ‘think German’ campaign” that promises a
“new, patriotic cultural policy” and an end to funding for “anti-German art and
culture”."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
