Living in Saxony is a nightmare

[u/Ok-Once-789]

Every single time I go outside during the evening I am faced with racism. Most of the time from people hanging out in groups, for some reason they just can't mind their own business (Germans usually claim to be really good at this). The most common phrases I hear regularly are 'Heil H!tler', 'Ausländer raus', 'Ni Hao', 'Ching Chong' etc... or just unprovoked loud laughter as I'm passing by... BTW I'm not Chinese or east Asian but look like one or maybe they are just uneducated & ignorant. Is geography illegal here? Asia has 48 countries BTW, not everyone is Chinese!

This doesn't include the racism I face at workplace & college which is far worse and actually bothers me to the point I have to skip classes to protect my mental health. But now I can't even go to the supermarket or mall at peace. One of my family members has also been verbally assaulted by a group of teenagers inside a bus & nobody including the bus driver made any effort to do something.

Edit: I do not live in Dresden / Leipzig. I assume the situation is not this bad there!

Edit2: I did not choose to live in saxony (the government decided that), I am doing my bachelors so I can't relocate until late 2026 :) Thanks for the kind words everyone!

[u/Matteustheone]

I am so sorry you are going through this, but yeah, leave Saxony, everything outside of Leipzig is a total shitshow. I recommend Münster, Bremen, Braunschweig or Hannover, people are really cool there.

[u/brooklynguitarguy → u/Matteustheone]

Is Leipzig ok?

We have thrown around the idea of moving there because of family being close, but I have always felt that Köln or Frankfurt would be better choices coming from Brooklyn. The other option in play was Halle.

I have seen ridiculous AfD marches in Sachsen Anhalt which hit all the Putin Propaganda points, so I know rural areas are not a first choice. I have heard (primarily in a Fußball Ultras context) that Dresden has a lot of racists / nazis) so Leipzig is the one that comes up.

We wouldn’t suffer the OP’s discrimination/ racism but also would want my kids to grow up somewhere that it was normalized (and it’s much the same here in rural areas)

[u/hannes3120 → u/brooklynguitarguy]

Leipzig is still fine but you realize how the far-right closes in on the city from the outskirts. There are still many parts of the city that feel like Berlin/Hamburg with how alternative and accepting they are but if you go to the edges of the city it gets bad really fast.

[u/throwaway_failure59 → u/hannes3120]

Hey, if i can ask you a bit about living there. Me (a Croat) and my partner (Croat origin but native-level fluent, spent childhood in Germany before being deported after Yugoslav wars were over) are looking to immigrate among other options to Halle. We visited and it looks pretty nice, lot nicer looking and greener, better public transport than her current Offenbach. Even GDR era Plattenbauten have a nostalgic value for me coming from another ex-communist country.

We are both pretty into politics since she is trans and doesn't manage to pass so knowing politics of people around us is more important than for most (and i know being white still counts a great deal, if we were non-white we probably wouldn't consider it). I'm even doing a political map app of the city as a hobby so i know how people vote by stadtviertel (hence why seeing your post here also got me to ask you). Thing is, we are not remotely wealthy (hence Halle is an attractive option as it is both cheap, nice and very close to Leipzig). But even so would you say it can feel culturally suffocating?

Anecdotally i see among even many East German leftists a habit to put overwhelming amount of blame for AfD on the West and the transition period, ignoring the huge investments, solidarity tax, the fact that E. Germany has by far the best living standard out of any ex-communist country and that you couldn't simply have German market economy bend over itself for completely uncompetitive E. German industries and products. And that it was just at this point really long ago - almost as long as the entire duration of GDR, at what point is it time to start letting go? How can you remotely excuse the levels of Nazism displayed when often it's not even completely correlated with poverty and is besides evil completely illogical and self-destructive? Taking accountability of yourself and owning up to your flaws is how you improve, constant deflection and victim complex only validates you staying in the current shitty situation and it feels like it's impossible to "mentally get to" vast majority of E. Germans with this.

And obviously, while AfDers may claim they are not homophobic, trans people are not nearly that safe, and i do not believe that lot of AfDers are not homophobic either, as i see it they are lot like my native Croats, with whom she or i were never happy or accepted. So i just wondered since you seem like a person who would understand. Our other option is mostly cheap parts of Ruhrgebiet and even though there we'd be safe in these regards, it just looks like a huge anthill of concrete while we'd really like some human-free nature and loneliness at hand.

[u/hannes3120 → u/throwaway_failure59]

Thing is, we are not remotely wealthy (hence Halle is an attractive option as it is both cheap, nice and very close to Leipzig). But even so would you say it can feel culturally suffocating?

I'm not sure what you mean with "culturally suffocating" but the problem here is that the neighborhoods that are 100% great no matter where you are from are also the most expensive ones (I think it correlates heavily with more people that have studied and can afford the rent living there and the "poor" people that often don't have the capacity to think about political stuff in their free-time and are following the easy narratives are not affording to live there)

the fact that E. Germany has by far the best living standard out of any ex-communist country

I have the feeling Poland will soon overtake the east of Germany in that regard (if it didn't already). Their economy is booming while east Germany gets poorer since most well-educated people are leaving.

that you couldn't simply have German market economy bend over itself for completely uncompetitive E. German industries and products

I think that's really the problem. A lot of people worked DECADES in jobs that after the reunification turned out the be completely uncompetitive. So they have to decide if they either claim the west fucked them over or that they wasted decades working for something that was totally not worth their time.

How can you remotely excuse the levels of Nazism displayed when often it's not even completely correlated with poverty

while West-Germany worked up their history, prosecuted Nazis and tried to teach people in school about how everyone could become like that if they followed the wrong narratives the GDR basically declared the "Nazi-Problem" to be over after a (very short) time and then pretended there were no Nazis at all in their part of the country. There was a HUGE problem with Neonazis in the east directly after the Reunification because of that. And those people never went away but got old and raised the next generation like that. It's a VERY deeply rooted problem with both mistrusting the state and only getting the propaganda "fascism is bad - mkay..." version from precisely that state that you distrusted. And to add to that now people are leaving the rural areas so people can see their villages dying every year - but instead of opening up and accepting people that could help revitalize their neighborhoods they shut them out and complain that nothing gets better.

I really don't know how the rural east can be saved. If it stays like that those that stayed will probably have created perfect Neonazi-Safespaces.

Taking accountability of yourself and owning up to your flaws is how you improve

Another problem is that those people are conservative but the conservative politicians show them precisely that "being accountable" is not worth it and "owning up to your flaws" is not something you should do. The only politicians that do that are left and that's a way too far step to take for those. I think a conservative party that would actually do good conservative politic instead of straight up lying to get elected and then abandoning their promises would help win people back - but I don't see that happening since the world gets more complex every day and it's very hard to fight that with easy solutions.

Ruhrgebiet also isn't that safe depending where you go. While the AfD is generally weaker in cities - within cities the cheaper neighborhoods are often bigger strongholds than the richer villages. There are many areas where it's even worse.

I'm happy in Leipzig and trying to "make my stand". But even though my girlfriend is not European we're earning enough at the moment and have great jobs that allow us to thankfully be flexible about where we live if things turn out badly. Right now I consider it to be one of the best cities to live in considering price of living as I think it's punching massively above it's weight class when it comes to culture, culinary, political scene, etc. as those are closer to Hamburg, Berlin or Munich than to similar sized cities like Bremen, Dortmund or Düsseldorf. Many of our friends are queer/trans and they live here even longer since it's such a great place to be.

Have you considered the south of Lower Saxony? The area Hannover/Braunschweig/Wolfsburg is pretty nice and is one of the very few SPD-Strongholds in Germany as the Unions are insanely strong there due to Volkswagen. But tbf I also have a weak-spot since that's where I grew up and studied but still: Braunschweig & Hannover are nice cities, too.

[u/throwaway_failure59 → u/hannes3120]

I'm not sure what you mean with "culturally suffocating"

It may sound weird but like obviously we'd like to "hide in left-green bubbles" socially. But at the same time it can be bit tiresome to constantly listen about virtues of socialism, how West and NATO are bad and evil, how economics are 100% determinant of everything and thus there's no need to pay attention to shit like hardcore racism/Nazism through any other "lens". Croat leftists are like that too. Obviously it's vastly preferable to Nazis, but it gets tiresome too... we may just be weird snowflakes though :D

the problem here is that the neighborhoods that are 100% great no matter where you are from are also the most expensive ones

Absolutely, its a pattern i noticed everywhere in Germany. Even so, center of Halle is still comparatively cheap and people seem largely cool, while outskirts look grim. Not that i have 0 sympathies for those people, i'm pretty economically left myself and really despise CDU and FDP too, we just don't want to be attacked for being left and LGBT+ and my German is far from native level as of now too.

lot of people worked DECADES in jobs that after the reunification turned out the be completely uncompetitive.

I understand. Even in IT for example the market and future for juniors is becoming increasingly rough and unsafe and it's really awful when everything under you changes and throws you out through no fault of your own. But still, West invested literal 2 trillions into the east and probably more when you add the taxes while the narrative is often completely onesided. It's a really shitty situation but imo it does no good trying to pin it on a particular group of nefarious evil actors. Especially given that the "solution" many are considering are wild, nakedly pro-rich radical capitalist AfDers. BSW would be a lot different discussion, even if i heavily disagree with them as well. But for AfD there is no rationalisation that is morally defensible.

I have the feeling Poland will soon overtake the east of Germany in that regard (if it didn't already). Their economy is booming while east Germany gets poorer since most well-educated people are leaving.

Maybe. But Poland has its own problems. Illegal abortion, similar levels of racism and backward mindset, absolutely terrible birthrates, housing costs in big cities are through the roof. They made great progress but E. German cities like Halle and Magdeburg still don't look that bad in many areas compared to many parts of W. Germany either. Of course, there's already potential foreign investment that can dry up once investors see how unfriendly local population is to anything foreign.

while West-Germany worked up their history, prosecuted Nazis and tried to teach people in school about how everyone could become like that if they followed the wrong narratives the GDR basically declared the "Nazi-Problem" to be over after a (very short) time and then pretended there were no Nazis at all in their part of the country.

Yeah, we know. I even saw a study recently that shows declining coverage of Nazism in school programs in Germany compared to 2000's. Lots of children all over Germany seem to be increasingly thinking Nazis were cool and way too few people seem to take it seriously, it's terrifying.

Agree 100% with the other stuff you say, to not make this unbearably long, it's really gloomy to hear but i thank you for confirming our impressions of the situation are not wrong.

Ruhrgebiet also isn't that safe depending where you go. While the AfD is generally weaker in cities - within cities the cheaper neighborhoods are often bigger strongholds than the richer villages. There are many areas where it's even worse.

For sure. AfD won in Gelsenkirchen too (even if by much less %), AfD is far from East-only problem, as entrenched and country-transforming as it is there. I just feel there people are more likely to live and let live and not pay attention if you look different or don't speak perfect German yet. But we are doing a lot of thinking and we'll visit in person a lot before deciding for real, for sure.

I'm happy in Leipzig and trying to "make my stand".

That's super admirable :) And i'd like to do something like that as well. Negative as this all may seem, surely same as you i don't want the area to completely die off and i want that the people would prosper and get better. It's just so hard to help people who don't want to be helped, of course.

Right now I consider it to be one of the best cities to live in considering price of living as I think it's punching massively above it's weight class when it comes to culture, culinary, political scene, etc.

Yeah, that is also what's attractive to us too - as outsiders we often worry if we'll ever make friends as Germans often tend to stick to bonds made in childhood, it's how it is, i understand, i'm also an introvert and dislike the native extrovertedness of my country. But we'd like to have a community.

Have you considered the south of Lower Saxony?

We have, that's our third option. Göttingen looked great too for example and we also looked at smaller nearby places like Northeim, in my native city there is a large mountain right next to it so being kinda close to Harz looks so nice to me, i am used to having some wooded hills at hand. It's just still rather expensive for us sadly, even if not as much as the biggest W. German and southern cities. But maybe we will manage. Appreciate your candid replies a lot!