Stefan Vogl lets his shoulders hang. He squats in his green parka in the beer tent, completely apathetic, until suddenly he hits the table with his flat hand. "I've been out of place since the beginning," he shouts. It's one of those sentences that other guests find provocative: A little later, the 57-year-old is crooked on the floor - beaten up by an angry mob.

Luckily, all this is just played. This evening in the Dresdner Schauspielhaus Vogl mimics a young man named Till from the Saxon Freital. The documentary piece "Earlier Everything" is about the fall of the Berlin Wall and mass unemployment, adventurers and dependents appear, phrases like "we are the people" and "it was not all that bad".

It is a piece about the city where Vogl has been working as a teacher for 31 years - and which is well-known outside of Saxony for one thing: racism. In the summer of 2015, there were massive protests against a refugee home, right-wing terrorists committed attacks against immigrants and dissidents. In March 2018, the main executives were sentenced to long prison terms.

The play is an attempt to sort past and present, it is about the open hatred of yesteryear and the still fermenting rage. There is a big question hovering above all that is not only in Freital before the local elections in May and the state election in autumn: how does society deal with racism, with right-wing extremism?

It is difficult to get answers in Freital. Attempt of an unrepresentative street survey: "No, do not go," says a woman in a maroon quilted jacket. "It has calmed down," says an innkeeper, nothing more. A woman with a dog does not want to say anything, a gray-haired man only shakes his head. Others claim to have no opinion or to live in Freital at all.

Perhaps these reactions can also be explained by the fact that many Freitalians are still not very good at talking to journalists. With the intensive reporting on the "Freital Group" it had been exaggerated, it was often said in recent years, of a "racism-club" was the talk of completely exaggerated acts of some "rascals".

Freital - the silent city

"Everything used to be" - better, worse, different? At the Dresden Schauspielhaus, a play thematizes the social development in the Saxon Freital.

The play, which features amateur actors from the small town near Dresden, is a reaction to a whole series of events that have made Freital known nationwide since 2015.

The city with its approximately 40,000 inhabitants in southeastern Saxony is known for one thing above all else: racist attacks, right-wing rallies and a terrorist group.

Among other things, because of explosives attacks on refugee shelters, seven young men and one woman had to answer before March 2017 before the Dresden Higher Regional Court.

The judges impose several years imprisonment on the members of the "Freital Group" - which had emerged from a vigilante.

The process took place under strict safety conditions, after exactly one year the verdict was passed. Thus, the acts of the group were racist terror.

Michael Richter was the victim of an allegedly extreme right-wing attack: A baulier banned in Germany destroyed the empty car of the left-wing city council. When he testified in court, the local politician burst into tears.

In September 2015, an attack on an office of the Left Party in Freital was committed, and the "Freital Group" was responsible for this.

Emergency windows with a wooden lock of a Freitaler refugee apartment: In November 2015, explosives were deposited in front of the windows, a Syrian civil war refugee was injured in the attack on the face.

By the summer of 2015 at the latest, the group Freital should have come into being - at a time when the city made international headlines with protests in front of a refugee shelter.

The former "Hotel Leonardo" in Freital: Refugees moved to the refugee home in the spring of 2015. This decision led to violent protests.

The riots were soon a case for the security authorities: The police accompanied the rallies with a massive squad. This picture shows an arrest in front of the property in June 2015.

The conflict threatened to escalate as hundreds of demonstrators walked for days to the "Hotel Leonardo", which eventually closed the police with emergency services.

Large-scale operation in front of the Hotel Freital: Right-wing populists such as Pegida co-founder Lutz Bachmann, who had organized several parades in front of the refugee home, played a central role.

Stefan Vogl was involved with the immigrants right from the start in Freital - and is now among those who perform in the play about the history of the city.

Vogl believes that a silent majority was formed in Freital in the summer of 2015: while some have only grown louder, many others have retreated into internal emigration.

This development also addresses the play - in which actor Vogl says a sentence that he finds right as a private individual: one should not fight fire with fire.

For this reason, Vogl did not stand in front of the refugee camp on the side of anti-fascists and refugee helpers in 2015, but also organized sports evenings for migrants in the "Willkommensbündnis Freital".

Others try politics - like refugee assistant Steffi Brachtel (left) and Green Councilor Ines Kummer (right). "I just hope," says Brachtel, "that it is at some point normal to speak up and get involved."

Brachtel and Kummer were already in 2015 among those in the village, which made strong against racism. Brachtel's son Nico (l) now lives in Dresden, the left-wing politician Michael Richter (r.) Freital has now left because of the hostility.

The same is true of a senior citizen walking through the city with her husband and a walker. "In adolescence," she says of the Freitaler terrorists, "some have already made a nonsense, then you regret it, and good is." Her husband is nodding aside, their names do not want to call the spouses.

One would like to know what Lord Mayor Rumberg says. However, a request for a conversation rejects in his name from the city press spokesman Matthias Weigel - "due to the undifferentiated reporting in the past". The head of the city does not mute for the first time: Already three years ago, Rumberg rejected interviews on the subject of right-wing extremism.

DPA

Mayor Rumberg (archive image)

Rumberg also does not want to give an interview on the question of whether and to what extent the reporting on Freital was undifferentiated in the past. Even a third request for silence of the Lord Mayor and local CDU chairperson remains unanswered.

Having nothing to say also sends a message. In this case, it suggests that the problem is less right-wing activities than the reports and debates about them. That would be a remarkable message in a city in which a right-wing party enjoys considerable popularity: In 2017, the AfD received around 35 percent of the vote in the Bundestag election, significantly more than Rumberg's CDU.

Even the attempt, AfD head Norbert Mayer to move to a conversation, fails. Written questions remain unanswered, he can not be reached by phone, no one is there when visiting the AfD-Bürgerbüros in the district of Deuben.

How can a city handle its recent past when hardly anyone talks about it?

Steffi Brachtel and Ines Kummer are ready to talk, they are sitting in a café in the Dresden main station - and look back. Two years ago, the trial of "Freital Group" began, a year ago the terrorists were convicted. And today?

"Emotionally this is far from complete," says Green City Councilor Kummer, "that has really changed our lives massively." Brachtel, refugee helper and civil courage winner, nods - and then they list what has happened since the summer of 2015: the insults and threats, the explosive device in Brachtel's letterbox, the Hitler salute from passing cars. Even today she is queasy, says Brachtel, if she goes alone in the evening through the city.

MIRROR ONLINE

Steffi Brachtel (l.) And Ines Kummer

"Here is continued silence," she says, so the danger that it would come back to racist violence. Kummer sees the similar situation: The city administration had let pass the chance to really work up what happened.

The situation has changed significantly. The fear of immigrants has remained apparent, most immigrants, however, not: The refugee home in the former "Hotel Leonardo" anyway, before the ugly scenes in 2015, is now empty. At the front door only a list with all house prohibitions reminds of the conflicts - the last entry is dated to the 16. February 2016.

In the whole city live only 120 refugees, distributed decentralized and well supplied - says Stefan Vogl, the Till actor from the play about Freital. The high school teacher sits the day after the first performance in a bakery on Dresden's Albertplatz and breakfast a piece of chocolate cake. "Basically, everything is going," says the 57-year-old: Most of the refugees have a job, "and now you can talk to everyone in German."

That does not matter to right groups. They continue to spread their ideas, while many Freitaler are silent. For example, the "Bürgerinitiative Freital", which sees its extended arm in the AfD, sounds on its Facebook page that "our city is almost free of migrants". When the city council Michael Richter, himself a victim of the "Freital Group", moved to Bavaria because of the hostility, it was said: "Go away and bye!" In the upcoming elections, it says in another post, that "these sozis, 'The Greens' and 'The Left' should finally leave our city." With such slogans, it has brought the "citizens' initiative" to around 7,300 Facebook subscribers.

"Everything is basically running"

Kummer is annoyed - also because she would like to talk more about the progress of recent years: the newly founded "Sociocultural Center", the application of the city for the "Day of the Saxons", the booming technology center, the good care with Kita places , But grief misses an active civil society.

Brachtel does not want to take that anymore. She has joined the left, is now running for the city council, wants to intervene, inter alia, for more education and youth work. "I just hope," she says, "that at some point it's normal to speak and get involved."

People like Brachtel and Stefan Vogl hope that this will change the political climate in the city. On the stage in Dresden Vogl said a sentence the previous evening, which he now repeated: "You can not fight fire with fire." That was also his opinion in 2015, when he played volleyball with asylum seekers, instead of shouting at racists on the side of anti-fascists.

MIRROR ONLINE

Stefan Vogl

At that time, says Vogl, Freital had been an adventure playground for right-wing extremists and their "racist pigs". One of the big problems, however, is that nobody has ever really tried to stop the escalation since then. "Everyone worked together, they found the other shit, felt good about it - and made it worse," he says. "But not only Nazis and heroes live here."

Vogl is convinced that because of the polarization in the summer of 2015 in Freital formed a silent majority: While some have only ever become louder, many others have retreated into the internal emigration. He says, "When it comes down to it, people prefer to look 'who's going to be a millionaire' instead of starting an association."

Nevertheless, Vogl has not given up hope. What keeps him in Freital? "I like this city," he says. "She does not leave you cold."