Göttingen, the “red stronghold” – and how the right is taking back what it never had

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There are cities whose reputation precedes them. Göttingen is one of those. Anyone who moves here - to study, to work, out of conviction - has already heard that this city of 130,000 inhabitants on the edge of the Harz Mountains is different: more left-wing, more contentious, more uncomfortable. For decades this was not folklore, but reality. And it is precisely this reality that is at stake right now.

A bastion that had to be fought for

Göttingen's reputation as a “red stronghold” is no coincidence and no merit of the administration. It was fought for – street by street, decade by decade. Autonomous groups have been active here since the 1980s, from anti-nuclear activists to squatters to the Antifa structures that gave the city its name. The Autonomous Antifa [M] set the tone nationwide in the 1990s and drove the right-wing extremist comradeship scene out of the city. During NPD marches, Göttingen was simply paralyzed by counter-protests. Right-wing small groups and fraternity members who tried to agitate on campus – they eventually gave up in frustration.

This success had a price that is often forgotten today: it was work. Daily, unspectacular, often thankless work. Research, documentation, presence on the street. The Antifascist Education Center and Archive in Göttingen still records who the region's right-wingers are and what they do. The Red Help is at home here. The “red stronghold” was never a state of nature – it was a balance of power. And the balance of power can change.

How it turns – the chronicle of the last few months

They tip quietly, then loudly. In the last two years, a “young right-wing crew” has become visible in Göttingen – 15 to 18 year olds who specifically go to left-wing places “to look for stress”. First verbally, then with New Year's Eve rockets at the left-wing alternative “Juzi”. They daubed a rainbow-colored staircase and a memorial plaque for the Nazi book burnings - symbols chosen carefully.

In October 2025, 13 swastikas, 20 to 80 centimeters tall, on the walls, windows and chairs of the “Dots” collective bar. State security investigated; the perpetrators were never found. In June 2026 the escalation: A 17-year-old right-wing extremist stabbed a 23-year-old anti-fascist in the chest, just past the heart. Emergency surgery, artificial coma, a second operation. The perpetrator was initially released - “a self-defense situation cannot be ruled out”. More than 1,000 people then took to the streets. And in September 2026, the stage of the same “Dot” in the inner courtyard of the Börnerviertel burns down to the ground. The cause of the fire is officially open –in the left scene a right-wing background is assumed.

Four incidents, one pattern, one location. Anyone who still reads this as a series of coincidences doesn't want to see what's happening here.

Not a special case in Göttingen

What is happening in Göttingen is the local front of a nationwide shift. The AfD achieved a landslide victory in the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt; For the first time there is a threat of an AfD-led government. According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the number of right-wing extremist suspects has more than doubled in a short period of time. What observers call the return of the “baseball bat years” is not a metaphor: the violent radicalization of young people, the hunt for queers, leftists, migrants - and no longer just where the right has always been strong, in the east, in the small towns, but also in the middle of the supposedly safe university town.

This is exactly what makes Göttingen a symptom. If the right takes back what it never had, then the old certainty – “not with us” – is just that: an old certainty. “Maybe we were too sure that something like that couldn’t happen here,” said one activist after the knife attack. A sentence that goes beyond the city.

The state is looking in the wrong direction

And here we have to be clear. The swastikas on the “Dots”: perpetrator unknown. The rockets on the “Juzi”: perpetrator unknown. The knife stabber: free again for now. While the clearance rate for right-wing violence against left-wing places tends to be zero, the authorities can think of a surprising number of things when it comes to left-wing structures - state security, surveillance, repression. This is no coincidence and no excessive demand. It is a political priority setting.

A state that has invoked the danger from the left for decades, while right-wing terror was organized from Munich in 1980 via the NSU to Hanau, has a structural perception problem. In Göttingen, this problem can be seen on a small scale: anyone who daubs a rainbow staircase will not be caught; Anyone who defends them is targeted. So the balance of power is shifting – not just because the right is becoming stronger, but because the state is allowing it to happen.

What follows from this

The good news is that Göttingen proves that there is another way. This city remained a bastion for decades not because the right was too weak, but because the left was present. The 1,000 on the street after the knife attack, the wave of solidarity after the swastikas, the defiance of the “Dots” collective – that is half of the answer. The other is more uncomfortable: presence cannot be preserved. “Where did the movement break off?” asks an activist who was there in the 2000s. Right-wing graffiti that remains for weeks is an indicator. The number of people who see daily anti-fascist work as an urgent task has fallen.

The shift to the right is real, it is nationwide, and it has arrived in Göttingen. But it is not a law of nature. What was fought for can be defended – by those who stand up for it. The street leaves everything else to those who set fires.