The capture of town halls was extremely helpful for the rise of the Greens to become a people's party in Baden-Württemberg.

In 1996, Konstanz was the first German university town with a green mayor.

In the meantime, the Green Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann has been in power for eleven years, but the Greens have not made as good progress as they intended in the municipalities and town halls.

They form the strongest factions in a number of municipal councils, but in many places there is a lack of high-profile local politicians who can successfully contest a mayoral campaign.

Rudiger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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Should Boris Palmer lose the mayoral election in Tübingen in the fall, there would no longer be a university town in the southwest with a green town hall chief.

Even if Palmer wins, it's unclear whether he'll still speak for the Greens because the state party is conducting expulsion proceedings against him.

That is why the current step by Science Minister Theresia Bauer (Greens) in September to leave the cabinet of Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann is also important for the party as a whole: the 56-year-old politician wants to become Mayor of Heidelberg on November 6th.

There has been speculation about this for a long time.

"The city is an important creative space, both for very specific things and for our personal responsibility for global issues," Bauer told the FAZ

In 2006, the CDU, the Free Voters, the electoral community "Die Heidelberger" and the FDP succeeded in breaking the SPD dominance that had prevailed since 1958 in the university town with the now 60-year-old, non-party Eckart Würzner.

Bauer said the time was right to start a "new chapter."

There is no “return ticket” to the ministerial office for them.

The decline of the CDU in university towns can be studied well using the example of Heidelberg.

With 16 councillors, the green group in the municipal council is more than twice as strong as the CDU. The CDU lost the state parliament mandate to Bauer and thus the Greens in 2011;

The current Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics, Franziska Brantner, won the Heidelberg constituency last autumn by a margin of almost five percentage points.

"This is not a mowed meadow for the incumbent, the minister is a respected and respected person who also has fans in the CDU," says a CDU member in Heidelberg.

After the two direct mandates, the Greens now wanted power at all levels.

"It's like in many cities, we build the new passive house settlements, and the residents then vote for the Greens." What is meant is the new district "Bahnstadt": In the local elections in 2019, for example, the Greens are not the strongest in only 17 of 131 electoral districts in the Bahnstadt constituency, where many young academic families live, the party got its best result ever: 39.84 percent.

Incumbent Würzner knows the social majority in Heidelberg just as well as that in the municipal council, where the parties supporting him do not have a majority.

That's why the qualified geologist has been running a quiet election campaign against the Greens for a long time, ever since he had to reckon with having a former minister as a challenger.

Würzner was environmental mayor for a number of years and is chairman of the European climate protection network "Energy Cities".

He made a name for himself with a black-green local political agenda: to the astonishment of all local council factions, he recently proposed making local public transport free of charge.

Würzner was not always successful

However, Würzner was not always successful with his projects and plans.

A location he favored for a new tram depot fell through in a referendum, also for reasons of climate protection;

He was also unable to implement the major project to move the noisy car traffic on the inner-city section of the Neckar into a tunnel.

The people of Heidelberg rejected the project by referendum.

For Minister Bauer, the candidacy is also not without risk.

Some accuse her of a lack of political commitment to Heidelberg, others criticize her working too closely with the rector of the local university.

And not every member of the Heidelberg district association agrees with the enforcement of tuition fees and their plea for genetic engineering.

Prime Minister Kretschmann praised Bauer's decision.

He did not answer the question of whether State Secretary Petra Olschowski (Greens) would succeed Bauer.

In two other cities, the party is facing exciting election decisions.

This weekend, the green school mayor in Baden-Baden, Roland Kaiser, is applying for the office of mayor.

He is running in the second ballot after the first was disastrous for the established parties: Margret Mergen, the incumbent of the CDU, got only 24.2 percent and gave up;

Dietmar Späth, non-party mayor of a neighboring municipality, emerged as the winner with 39.2 percent.

Kaiser got 24 percent.

Because Späth is being criticized for his allegedly dubious campaign funding from local restaurants and for appearing at a "Playboy Gentlemen's Weekend", Kaiser could have a chance.

In Tübingen, Boris Palmer is still confident that he will become mayor for the third time because a survey gave him good ratings.

But two women, to whom he is also personally connected, compete against him: the social democrat Sofie Geisel and the Green Ulrike Baumgärtner.

This makes it difficult for Palmer to conduct a badly exacerbated election campaign.