A visit to a stronghold of the AfD, Germany’s far-right party

CLOSE TO THESOEADMPADAD Czech border, south-east of Dresden, around the Elbe valley, lies one of Germany’s prettiest though clunkiest-titled electoral districts, a constituency called Saxon Switzerland Eastern Ore Mountains (). Its majestic sandstone peaks, verdant trails, beautiful medieval cities and villages have been memorialised by German romantics such as Caspar David Friedrich, a 19th-century painter. Hundreds of thousands of tourists flock to the district every year. Unemployment and crime are low. The population is almost entirely ethnic German.On the face of it, life is dandy in Saxon Switzerland, but at the last federal election in 2017 the populist-right f scored its best result there, with 35.5% of the , the second votes, which determine the overall proportion of seats that each party holds in the Bundestag. Frauke Petry, a former party leader, won 37.4% of first votes used to elect s directly and thus became one of 94 f novices in the Bundestag, though eight of them, including Ms Petry, have since left the f.