German far-right hotbed Chemnitz looks to shed past in 2025 as European Capital of Culture

Known as Karl-Marx-Stadt under communism and later a notorious hotspot for far-right violence, the eastern German city of Chemnitz is now seeking to reinvent itself as a 2025 European Capital of Culture.

Chemnitz plans to welcome around two million visitors to 150 arts and cultural projects this year, including museum exhibits and a colourful mix of music, theatre, film and dance shows.

The festivities, themed “C The Unseen”, seek to highlight the cosmopolitan side of the city of 250,000 people in Saxony that tends to be overshadowed by the bigger eastern urban centres of Dresden and Leipzig.

The year-long programme will include panel talks, street chess, queer culture, toymaking, a cooking marathon and a new opera with a libretto written by Booker Prize-winning author Jenny Erpenbeck.

Chemnitz mayor Sven Schulze hopes the extravaganza will change perceptions about the city, where in 2018 right-wing extremists were accused of hunting down migrants through the streets between drab Cold War-era prefabricated housing blocks.