The Kyffhäuser Monument was erected on a mountain peak in the lush green forests of Thuringia as a tribute to Kaiser Wilhelm I, the first head of a united Germany.

But the huge sandstone monument has become a symbol of division in the former East German state, which is currently preparing to hold key regional elections on September 1.

The nostalgic building has become a popular meeting place for members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is leading by around 30 percent in opinion polls ahead of the election.

According to legend, Emperor Barbarossa has been sleeping at the monument for 800 years and his reawakening will restore the greatness of the German Empire.

“The extreme right must not take over this place,” Madeleine Henfling, the Green Party’s top candidate for the election, told the AFP news agency at the foot of the monument.

“The monument is glorified by these guys. It’s very dangerous,” agreed Michael Fischer, 66, who visited the site with his daughter and grandchildren.

In order to prevent the AfD from appropriating the monument, the state government is currently setting up a new documentation center on European history there.

Henfling, who has been fighting the neo-Nazi movement for more than 15 years, is convinced that the center will help prevent the memorial from being misused for right-wing extremist political narratives.

– Attacks and insults –

Thuringia is one of the three eastern German states where elections will be held in September. The AfD is likely to make major gains in all three states.

Björn Höcke, a former history teacher and now state chairman of the AfD in Thuringia, is one of the party’s most controversial figures and has been fined twice this year for using a banned Nazi slogan.

Meanwhile, the Greens, who are currently part of the three-party coalition in Thuringia, are fighting for their survival with poll ratings of less than five percent.

Henfling, 41, was born in Ilmenau, a small village in the region, six years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and remembers being aware of the rise of the far right even as a child.

“It’s somehow in my DNA. I can smell Nazis from 100 meters away, even when there’s a headwind,” she told AFP.

In the run-up to the election, attacks on politicians from all parties have increased.

“We are constantly insulted, that’s nothing new for me,” says Henfling, who has been a member of the Thuringian state parliament for ten years.

However, the danger has “diversified,” she said, and now people of different ages and backgrounds pose a potential threat.

“Our members no longer distribute flyers or put up posters on their own initiative, especially not at night,” she says.

Henfling and her team use an anonymous black vehicle for their campaign trips and notify the police on every trip.

– “Tired of change” –

As she campaigns door-to-door, “there are certainly places we don’t go because we know they would turn us away and there would be no point,” she said.

Henfling believes that the Greens are having difficulties in the new federal states because they “demand that people change their behavior (to protect the climate).”

“Many people in Thuringia and elsewhere are tired of change – even if it is for their best,” she said.

After German reunification in 1990 and the collapse of the communist government, the former GDR struggled with social deprivation and high unemployment.

“Against the backdrop of uncertainty caused by the war in Ukraine and inflation, people are afraid of being marginalized again,” said Henfling.

Henfling’s mother never found another job after she was fired from a bookstore in 1990. But she believes trials like these have made East Germans stronger.

In the town of Nordhausen, just a stone’s throw from the Kyffhäuser Memorial, a 67-year-old pensioner who gave his name only as Wolfgang said he would vote for the AfD.

“The economy is going to the dogs because of the Greens,” he said.

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