If you ever visit the impossibly pretty town of Görlitz, the easternmost city in Germany, you may be struck by a feeling of familiarity. This is understandable, as the town is increasingly used as a film backdrop.
Long a favorite of German directors, Görlitz gained international attention when Quentin Tarantino shot the movie-in-a-movie Stolz der Nation for Inglourious Basterds there, and through both The Reader and The Book Thief . More recently, Wes Anderson filmed The Grand Budapest Hotel with Görlitz filling in for a sumptuous resort in the fictional Eastern European country of Zubrowka.
Why filmmakers are attracted is understandable. Grouped around the Gothic St. Peter and Paul’s Church rising high above the left bank of the Neisse River, Görlitz is the best-preserved historic center in Central Europe. With 3,700 listed memorial buildings – as many as Prague but in a more concentrated area – Görlitz presents an unbroken timeline of six centuries of architecture, from the Gothic period through to Art Nouveau, linked by a jumble of cobblestone alleyways and tree-lined avenues. Another plus is the lack of crowds, which means fewer disturbances while shooting. But while an advantage for the film industry, the situation represents a problem because, for all its beauty, Görlitz seems a dying town.
BEHIND THE STAGE SETS
© J.Glaescher/J.Froehlich Although many people took the opportunity to shift west after the collapse of communist East Germany in, it was only a surge in a decades-long outflow for Görlitz. The population peaked in at 101,000 and has been in free-fall ever since. Today it hovers around 55,000 and will decline to 47,000 by, according to projections by the Bertelsmann Foundation, a large, non-profit think-tank.
Hartmut Wilke disagrees. The head of town planning, he believes there will still be around 55,000 inhabitants. Wilke – a patient, articulate man – explains, “We are almost at the point of equilibrium between the numbers coming to live in Görlitz and those leaving.”
Born and raised in Görlitz, Wilke traced the city’s roads affectionately into his childhood on his bike. Change is noticeable, he says. “The streets are emptier, the trams are emptier, shops and apartments remain unused longer.”
Yet, he remains positive because, while from to the city hemorrhaged 1,000 residents a year, this has reduced to a trickle. Part of the reason is the massive renovation, estimated at more than €500 million ($670 million), undertaken in the old city core and in the 18th century district around the medieval Nikolai Church. Investors were encouraged to purchase and renovate entire buildings, while the city has renovated or constructed schools, kindergartens and playgrounds.
Wilke argues this has achieved a dynamic that has provided fresh life to areas left derelict by decades of neglect and stagnation. Young families and the elderly are moving in, bars and restaurants are plentiful. “These areas are blooming again,” he says, “even if it is not the same throughout the entire city.”
Yet, despite Wilke’s optimism the number of inhabitants will continue to fall, if only slightly, because of the bane of aging societies – the fertility rate. Simply put, more people are dying in Görlitz than being born, though the trend is positive. “After years of extremely low births, the numbers are trending upwards,” says Wilke, “giving us hope that we can soon keep the number of inhabitants stable.”
One of the intriguing aspects of Görlitz is demography. In terms of age of inhabitants, Görlitz is the oldest city in the oldest state in the oldest country in Europe. Its citizens are on average 47.3 years of age – a figure Germany is expected to reach around.
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING CITY
© J.Glaescher/J.Froehlich Andreas Knie simply shakes his head. “Görlitz is a spectacular example of a town that will continue to shrink. Nothing will stop it,” he says. “We can’t see any chance, any initiative in view that will drive Görlitz forward.”
Knie, a noted sociologist from the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB), specializes in population mobility and is as equally brutal in his assessment of most of east Germany. “Studies show that the better the transport connections, the quicker people leave. Southern and western Germany are becoming more populated, while the east is being drained,” he explains.
Görlitz’s misfortune is its location. Situated a few miles north of the Czech Republic and literally a stone’s throw across the Neisse from Poland, it was once an important staging post on the Via Regia, a medieval trade route from Santiago di Compostela in Spain to Kiev. It is buried deep in a Saxony forest, and its location protected it from the ravages of the second world war, but afterwards the Neisse became the border to Poland and the eastern suburbs annexed and renamed Zgorzelec. For years, Görlitz’s obscurity as a neglected border post saved the historic center from undergoing socialist-style redevelopment. Today, Görlitz is as far east as it is possible to go in Germany, and many Germans struggle to find it on a map.
“Germans think it is quicker to Palma (Spain) than to east Germany. Unless you have family there, there is no affinity, no emotional ties,” says Knie. “For a city like Görlitz, absolutely on the periphery, there is no future as long as our mental maps end just the other side of Berlin.”
WELCOME TO PENSIONOPOLIS
Needless to say, Görlitz does not see it that way. The town is seeking to capitalize on its architectural heritage and has applied for UN World Heritage status. It has also gained a reputation as a “pensioner paradise.”
West German pensioners, particularly the middle-class, are moving eastwards. The main destination is the cultural mecca of Weimar, but Görlitz has a steady stream of new 60+ residents attracted by the promise of a west German standard of living at east German prices. Apart from 40 churches, Görlitz has 22 general practitioners, 16 chemists, five ophthalmologists, two urologists, six retirement and nursing homes, a large regional hospital of good repute, and a wide array of senior clubs. Accommodation costs a third of Munich or Stuttgart, with better value, and Poland – where shopping is cheaper – is a stroll across a bridge, so the attractions are understandable. From to, an average of 530 west Germans moved yearly to Görlitz.
Görlitz is a spectacular example of a town that will continue to shrink. Nothing will stop it Andreas Knie For the town, this is a demographic rediscovery. In the 19th century, it was known as “Pensionopolis,” as it provided a cultured, tranquil retirement destination for civil servants from Berlin and Breslau (today’s Wroclaw). Yet, the town council has mixed feelings about the development. While it welcomes the influx of new residents, there is concern about a “Florida syndrome” – creating an enclave of elderly with few employment possibilities for the young (the unemployment rate is currently 14%). Preferable is a healthy mix of generations that could entice, amongst others, startups to relocate there.
“I think that is the right approach,” say Andreas Hoff, “You have to make it a place worthwhile for all generations otherwise it will not work in the long run.” Aged 46, Hoff moved from Oxford University to Görlitz four years ago to take up the chair of social gerontology at the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences. For Hoff, being in Görlitz means being at ground zero of demographic change.
Hoff believes Görlitz will continue to shrink, but sees the future more positively than Knie, expecting the city to eventually reach a balance based on an influx of new residents from regional areas. As the rural population ages and dwindles, providing transportation and medical expenses will become increasingly expensive, so people will gravitate to regional points such as Görlitz.
“Görlitz will prevail and continue to be a place with a high quality of life. The challenge is to make it attractive not only for the older, but also the younger and middle-aged,” he explains. “Rather than looking towards Germany, rediscovering older interregional links with northern Bohemia (in the Czech Republic) and west Silesia (Poland) could be the way to go to the benefit of all three regions.”
DON’T WRITE OFF THE EAST
Manuela Schwesig, the German Family Minister and herself an Ossi , as those of east German origins are called, noted in a speech earlier this year that east Germany should not be written off. She commented that in the and, two of Europe’s most hopeless demographic and economic cases were Tuscany and Provence – both have rebounded.
Yet, even if Görlitz succeeds in stopping the shrinkage, it will do so at the cost of surrounding regions. The fact is that Germany needs to come to terms with having fewer people and a far older society. United Nations figures project that the population could fall from 83 million to as low as 64 million by, with the median age rising from 44.3 to as much as 56.2. This will affect all aspects of society, from government revenue and expenditure, to housing prices, the maintenance and viability of infrastructure, as well as raising the question of who will keep the massive economy turning over. Yet, this need not be the disaster often portrayed in the press.
The elderly are proving their usefulness. Local companies in Görlitz are now turning to retired professionals to fill positions long left empty because of a lack of suitable candidates. The trick for Germany, and much of Europe, will be to manage population aging in a similar and active manner.
