Nothing else is talked about these days in Grünheide, a town of 9,000 inhabitants in the middle of the monotonous plain that, dotted with lakes and forests, extends between Berlin and the border with Poland. Elon Musk is on everyone’s lips. The insults to Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Interference in the German elections with inflammatory messages. Enthusiastic support for the extreme right.
But here, headquarters of Tesla’s largest European factory, everyone measures their words to the millimeter when referring to him. In the cafes and streets of this somewhat gray and dull town, or in the station in the middle of the forests where the trains deposit the workers, a few speak, but others simply remain silent, or ask that the recorder be turned off before speaking. . As if they didn’t want to get in trouble or make him uncomfortable.
Because in Grünheide, and throughout the state or land of Brandenburg, Musk is more than just the richest man in the world and Donald Trump’s ally. Here is also the man who in 2019, by surprise, announced that he would build his factory in this region of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). The one who launched it in record time on a 300-hectare plot of land. The one that has employed 12,500 people in a time of industrial crisis and doubts about the made in Germany. The one that produces 5,000 cars a week and the one that pays six million euros in annual taxes to a municipality with a complex history, a place that, under communism, hosted a headquarters of the fearsome Stasi, the secret police. He is also the investor who, according to environmentalists, and according to the extreme right, threatens the natural environment with his factory.
A sea of contradictions
All this is Musk in Grünheide and Brandenburg, where he has plunged politicians of all colors into a sea of contradictions after calling Scholz a “fool” and the ultra Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as the “last ray of hope” for this country supposedly on the brink of the apocalypse.
The Government of landled by the Social Democrats, puts itself in profile and avoids criticizing the man who has insulted the chancellor of his own party. Ultimately, this region won the lottery with this factory that many other places in Europe coveted and Tesla has contributed to the dynamism of the region.
The AfD is also left in an embarrassing position, since this far-right party now celebrates the support that the tycoon gives it, but staunchly opposed, for environmental reasons and with anti-American rhetoric, the construction of the Tesla factory.
A Tesla worker in Grünheide, who asks that his name and position at the factory not be published, speaks of “schizophrenia” when referring to his colleagues who support the AfD. If it were for the AfD, the factory would not exist and they would not have this job.
But the description of the worker could be applied to Musk himself, who attacks those who favored his installation in Germany: the social democrats. And cheers to those who hate the electric car and mobilized against Tesla: the extreme right.
“It is difficult for me to hear Elon Musk say that only the AfD can save Germany, because in Grünheide the AfD was always against the gigafactory”, says social democrat Pamela Eichmann, president of the municipal council, in a cafe in the town. Eichmann explains that Tesla’s local effect is beneficial thanks to tax revenue, but warns of the consequences that the tycoon’s words may have. “Support for the AfD,” he comments, “harms a factory where people from 50 different countries work. “It seems to me a mistake that Musk interferes in our politics.”
It is too early to evaluate the economic impact of Musk’s statements. A survey by the YouGov institute published this week by the British newspaper Guardian indicates that 73.2% of Germans consider the businessman’s attempt to influence German politics “unacceptable.” And there are experts who believe that this already began to happen even before, at the end of December, the magnate began to give his opinion on the campaign for the February 23 elections.
“Before [Tesla] it was a brand coolhe smartphone with four wheels,” declared economist Martin Fassnacht in November. The data had just been published according to which Tesla had gone from being number one in this country in registrations of electric cars, to number three, behind Volkswagen and BMW. “Elon Musk’s bad reputation hurts the brand,” added Fassnacht. “People don’t want to be associated with him.”
There is a division of opinion at the Grünheide plant, according to the aforementioned worker, who speaks of a “culture of fear” that would explain the caution when criticizing the boss in public. Unlike in historical German manufacturers, such as Volkswagen, here the unions are weak and have little influence.
“There is a lot of talk about Musk inside. Some agree with AfD and others do not. Some fear losing their jobs if sales fall,” says the anonymous worker. “Supporting AfD as a Tesla worker is suicide. “He’s schizophrenic.”
“I was and am against the Tesla factory in its current location,” Kathi Muxel, a local AfD politician and member of the Brandenburg Parliament, defends in a written message. Muxel argues that the factory is located in a water protection zone and regrets that, to build it, parts of the forest had to be cut down. That Musk asks for the vote for his party “does not change anything” to the criticism of the choice of Grünheide as the factory headquarters. Not even in his skepticism about the electric car: “Without massive subsidies from the State, they are practically unsellable.”
Manu Hoyer, president of the Grünheide Citizen Initiative, from the road next to the forests affected by Tesla, denounces that the extreme right has appropriated the environmental cause. “We do not fight alongside the AfD,” he warns. Regarding the benefits of the factory for the town and the region, he states: “It is a lie. Few in the region work at Tesla. There are only disadvantages here. Traffic has increased. Pollution from trucks is enormous. “The microclimate has changed.”
For or against, Grünheide is today synonymous with Tesla, in the same way that, until four decades ago, it was associated with the Stasi, which had a headquarters of Department M here, in charge of processing and controlling mail. Also living in Grunheide, for a time under house arrest, was one of the most illustrious dissidents of the regime, the scientist Robert Havemann (1910-1982). At the entrance to his bungalow, next to a lake, his name is still read on a sign, and there is a boat on a trailer. And this same plain and these forests were, in 1945, the scene of the bloody battle of Berlin before the fall of Hitler.
In a newspaper podcast Süddeutsche Zeitung, The journalist Renate Meinhof alludes, when referring to this region, to the concept of “polluted landscapes.” Contaminated by wars, dictatorships, the past. Looked at in perspective, Tesla and Musk are nothing more than a new chapter in a long, and very German, story.
