2013 German Federal Election - Hamburg Metro Maps (by precinct)

[Franknburger]

I have been wondering whether to open a new topic, or post in the general German elections thread. However, since we probably will have some discussion on German coalitions over the next weeks, I decided to leave that discussion alone in the German elections thread, and not disturb it with the numerous maps I will (hopefully) be posting in the weeks to come. From a resource point of view, it anyway makes some sense to keep a map collection separated from a discussion on current political events.

So, for a first overview, this is the area I am in the process of mapping:


The Hamburg Metro region comprises, aside from the City state of Hamburg, 18 counties/ county-free cities from three Federal States, with a total population of some 5.1 million. While many German metros are poly-centric, Hamburg, alongside Berlin and Munich, is a case of a mono-centric region. This makes it a good comparison to other mono-centric European metros such as London, Paris, Madrid, or Warsaw.

In fact, I am not mapping all of the Hamburg metro. Main reasons are technical: My svg-editor has been driven to its capacity limitations and is now crashing frequently. Election results are provided by the various counties in six different formats (federalism can be so great!), making them cumbersome to retrieve and consolidate, and I had to compile or prepare the base map myself from a number of Wikimedia Commons maps. precinct maps provided by several local governments, but also by digitising community and precinct borders myself.
So, my mapping excludes:

• The one-and-a-half Mecklenburg counties that form part of the Hamburg metro (marked light-green in the map above). They are in general very rural, meaning a lot of small village precincts (and more stress for my editor). An online mapping tool is already available at http://www-mvnet.mvnet.de/wahlen/2013_bund/JAVA/WahlenAtlas.htm, which limits the value added by additional mapping.
• The southern part of the Hedekreis, i.e. former Fallingbostel county before it was merged with Soltau county into the current Heidekreis.  That area is already mote oriented towards Hannover than Hamburg, and would not be part of the Hamburg metro without the a/m merger.
• The northern part of Dithmarschen county. Another electoral district, another reporting platform - and also definitely outside commuting range to Hamburg. Nevertheless, as I had already digitised them, the communitiies just south of the county capital of Heide, and the city of Heide itself are included in my mapping.
• Everything outside the black box in the overview map above - also outside commuting range, and in the case of western Cuxhaven county, already oriented more towards Bremerhaven/ Bremen than towards Hamburg.

The maps are essentially based on individual voting precincts, except for a handful of small towns, where I could not find  information on precinct delimitation (e.g. Schwarzenbek, Uetersen, Harsefeld), and for Hamburg itself. For the latter, I have mapped its 104 districts ("Stadtteile")- the some 1,500 voting districts would definitely have been too much for my editor.

The usual caveats apply - geographically large precincts tend to be sparsely populated and contain only few voters, while the geographically small, but densely populated  precincts determine the election outcome. This holds even more true for the Hamburg metro, where outlying villages with sometimes less than 50 voters have their own voting precinct, while suburbs such as Ahrensburg and Glinde operate on precinct sizes of 2,000 eligible voters or more. The population of Hamburg city districts ranges between 131 (Steinwerder-Waltershof) and 87,000 (Rahlstedt).
To compensate for this effect, densely populated areas are outlined in thick black. Asides, I intend to provide enlargements of a number of smaller towns and agglomerations (marked by blue frames in the above map). First, however, I will in the next post give an overview on the region's population structure, in order to enable readers not so familiar with the Hamburg metro to understand the electoral relevance  of certain areas.

[Franknburger]

Christaller's "Central Place Theory" predicts, for a region bare of major natural barriers, a ring of secondary centres in some 60 km (~one day's walk) distance around the primary centre, and that's exactly what you find around Hamburg. The most important of these secondary centres are
1. Lübeck to the north-east (some 280,000 inhabitants when including its suburbs),
2. Lüneburg to the south-east (some 120,000 inhabitants including suburbs), and
3. Neumunster to the north (some 90,000 inhabitants including suburbs)
The ring also contains several county capitals (Itzehoe, Bad Segeberg, Ratzeburg, Rotenburg/ Wümme, Stade) as well as other small towns (Soltau, Glückstadt), each ranging between 20,000 and 50,000 inhabitants.

The next ring, some 30 km further, i.e. 90-100 km distant from Hamburg, is partly as well still part of the Hamburg metro, containing further county capitals like Eutin and Uelzen in a generally sparsely populated, rural surrounding.  That ring, however, also includes the cities of Bremen, Kiel and Schwerin that for understandable reasons refuse to regard themselves as part of the Hamburg metro - hence the "bays" in the otherwise rather circular metro shape.

Traditionally, there have been two inner rings of small towns around Hamburg, running in some 20 and some 40 km distance from the city centre. Suburbanisation, however, has united the innermost ring with Hamburg itself, and lead to population spread along the main transport corridors towards the  next small town (35-40 km distant).



As such, the Hamburg agglomeration has a star-like shape with the following sub-agglomerations directly outside the city limits (see map above):

• Northern A7 corridor towards Neumunster/Kiel/Flensburg (1), containing Norderstedt, Quickborn, Henstedt-Ulzburg,  Kaltenkirchen plus a few smaller towns, with some 165,000 inhabitants in total
• Northern A1 corridor towards Lübeck (2), containing Ahrensburg, Ammersbek, Großhansdorf and Bargeteheide (70,000 inhabitants) and continuing, with a bit of countryside left in-between, to Bad Oldesloe (25,000 inhabitants)
• "Hamburg-East", named according to the A1 / A24 motorway junction with that name, containing Barsbüttel, Glinde, Reinbek and Wentorf plus a few smaller towns with close to 90,000 inhabitants. The settlement axis then splits, with one branch continuing along the old route to Berlin along the Elbe via Geesthacht (pop. 20,000) and Lauenburg (pop. 12,000), and the other one following the railway line via Schwarzenbek (pop. 16,000) and Büchen (pop.  6,000)
• The south-eastern corridor towards Luneburg (4), which entails Seevetal, Stelle and Winsen/Luhe (5), and is home to some 90,000 people
• The south-western extension along the railway line to Bremen (6), with Buchholz/Nordheide, Jesteburg and Tostedt (62,000 inhabitants)
• The westward corridor south of the Elbe towards Stade (7), with Neu-Wulmstorf and Buxtehude as prime cities (72,000 inhabitants),
• The north-western corridor through Pinneberg and Elmshorn, home to nearly 100,000 people between the Hamburg border and Pinneberg (9), plus another 100,000 in and around Elmshorn, Uetersen and Tornesch further up (8 ). Wedel, directly to the west of Hamburg on the Upper Elbe, houses another 32,000 people

In total, we are talking about close to 900,000 people living in these corridors outside of Hamburg itself, but in less than 40 km distance from the city centre plus another 700,000 in and around the "end points" (Neumünster, Lübeck, Lüneburg, Rotenburg, Stade, Itzehoe).
There are two secondary settlement corridors evolving - towards Bad Segeberg via Nahe/Itzstedt, and towards Ratzeburg via Trittau, but they are far less dense than the main ones. Otherwise, the metro, even within a 40 km radius around Hamburg, is still a lot of countryside.

[Franknburger]

Let's start with the AfD (2% scale):



In general, the AfD vote tends to range between 3 and 7 percent, with a few  places falling below or above that range.
The first important observation is that the ÁfD share is changing considerably when moving from one county to another. The effect is most pronounced along the southern and eastern border of Harburg county, and south-western Stade county, both to the south of Hamburg. It is also quite visible along the border from central Stormarn to western Lauenburg. This leads me to assume a strong organisational effect - several local party chapters (presumably CDU) may collectively have switched over to the AFD, providing them with networks and campaigning strength in the areas concerned. Note in this respect that AfD federal chairman Bernd Lucke lives in Winsen/Luhe, the Harburg county capital, and their Schleswig-Holstein party speaker is from Bargteheide in central Stormarn. Both have been long-term CDU members before founding/ joining AfD.

Secondly, there is quite some geographical variation:

- The AfD tends to do rather poorly in inner cities. Their worst result in Hamburg was in Sternschanze (1.8%), the city's one and only district in which the Greens came in first (and Linke tied with SPD for second place). The pattern sets forth to places like Lübeck's Wakenitz peninsula (AfD 2.5%, Greens 23.8%), the old town of Luneburg (AfD as low as 1.8%, Grüne as high as 29%), even the historic old towns of Stade and Lauenburg (Ratzeburg's old town - AfD 7.8% in the northern half  -is an exception from that rule, though).

- The Afd is also having problems across much of the countryside, especially in traditional CDU strongholds (which typically indicates little affection by exurban sprawl).  Some examples of places where the AfD did not get any votes: Himbergen-Kettelstorf (Uelzen county, 57 voters, 51% CDU), Bispingen-Haverbeck (Heidekreis, 43 voters, 68% CDU), Visselhövede-Kettenburg (150 voters, CDU 67%),  Seedorf-Godenstedt (Rotenburg county, 106 voters, CDU 55%), Kranenburg-Brobergen (Stade county, 118 voters, CDU 55%), Christinenthal (Steinburg county, 35 voters, 82% CDU), Borstel (Segeberg county, 74 voters, 53% CDU), Scharbeutz-Schulendorf (Ostholstein, 35 voters, 60% CDU).

- Last but not least, there are a few urban SPD strongholds, typically 1950/60s 3-4 storey apartment blocks, giving the AfD a hard time, e.g.  Lübeck 404 (Buntekuh), Barsbüttel 4 (Thorkoppel), and Elmshorn 20 (Ansgarstr.). These precincts don't look much different from areas where the AfD is typically doing quite well. The building history may provide some clues - Lübeck-Buntekuh, e.g., was built by the "Neue Heimat" (owned by the German labour unions before its financial collapse in 1982), while the Kiel-based WO-GE housing cooperative owns quite a number of blocks in the Elmshorn precincts in question. But altogether, I don't have a better explanation then AfD having problems wherever a strong local political culture (whether Greens/ Linke, CDU, or SPD) exists. [I am, e.g., still surprised to see these two precincts being won by SPD, with no vote for AfD].

What does that leave us with as AFD strongholds? First of all, the urban periphery, and especially the more recently built-up part between the first (20 km) and second (40 km) small-town ring around Hamburg. Places like Quickborn (pop.20,000, 6.6% AfD), Buchholz/Nordheide (pop. 37,000, 6.1% AfD), Hollenstedt (pop 3,500, 8.0% AfD vote-by-mail excluded), Glinde (pop. 18,000, 6% AfD), Trittau (pop. 8,200, 6.8% AfD), and Schwarzenbek (pop. 16,000, 6.3% AfD).
And, of course, Prof. Luckes hometown of Winsen, which gave him 8% in the main town (7.2% overall when including outlying villages and vote-by-mail)

The "satellites" carry their own peripheral AfD belts, such as Mölln (30 km/ 4 train stops south of Lübeck, pop. 18,500, AfD 6.4%),  Bad Bevensen (15 km / 2 train stops south of Luneburg, pop. 8,800, 5.9% AfD), Boostedt (10 km south of Neumunster, pop 4,600, AfD 6.6%) or Harsefeld (15 km south of Stade, pop. 12,000, 7.1% AfD in the town core - outlying villages partly lower).

Secondly, the AfD is also having substantial small-town appeal, especially in towns that used to be FDP strongholds, such as Oldenburg / Holstein (AfD 7% in the town core).

Coming back on earlier hypotheses: The AfD appears to do comparatively worse the more you move west, which might relate to post-WW II absorption of refugees. Compare, e.g, western Uelzen county to Cuxhaven county (both rather rural and outside commuting range to Hamburg). Classical "refugee towns" such as Glinde or Mölln's "Waldviertel" stand out with elevated  AfD shares.
As concerns tourism, certain resorts, most notably Lübeck-Travemünde (8%), Niendorf/ Ostsee (6.4%), and parts of Scharbeutz have above average voted AfD. Overall, however, tourism resorts are neither standing out as AfD strongholds, nor as particularly AfD adverse.

[Franknburger]

A bit more illustration on AfD:

Their best result in Hamburg (7.3%) was in Billbrook, which essentially looks like this


or this
,

includes some housing for Roma from the Balkans
,

but also a few reminders of the area's pre-industrial past


In Hamburg-Sternschanze, OTOH, they only got 1.8%



On to Lüneburg: Goseburg-Zeltberg  (the part north-east of the railway line, which is for high-speed trains and apparently can't be crossed)- AfD 8.7%


Am Stint (north-eastern old town) - AfD 1.8%


Bad Oldesloe Rethwischfeld - AfD 8.3%


Downtown Bad Oldesloe - AfD 3.4%



This should enable you to a qualified guess on the AfD vote in Glinde-Wiesenfeld-South


and in downtown Eutin

[Franknburger]

Since nobody felt like taking part in the quiz at the end of my last post, here the solutions:
- Glinde Wiesenfeld-South; AfD 7.8%
- Eutin dosntown: AfD 3.8%

On to the next map: Leading party (second vote, vote-by-mail excluded) by precinct. The light green areas are electorally unpopulated - either state forests, or major army training grounds. [I have no clue where the votes of the army personnel stationed on the latter is counted, but it is definitely not being included in the local community results.]  


Hamburg is red - though barely so. Overall, the city went 32.4 SPD vs. 32.1 CDU (33.6 vs. 30.4 when excluding vote-by-mail). The pattern is clear - CDU dominating in the up-scale quarters on the northern bank of the lower Elbe, in the north-east, and along the Alster lake in the city centre. They also take the still predominantly agricultural and sparsely populated Elbe marshes in the south-east, and south of the lower Elbe. SPD is taking almost everything else, though competing heavily with Greens and, more recently, Linke in the inner city quarters.
Hamburg-Sternschanze was the only inner-city district going Green this time (it is the smallest city district territory-wise, you will need to enlarge the map to spot it) while a few others (St. Pauli, Altona-Altstadt, Ottensen) swung heavily to the Linke this election, giving the SPD the upper hand in the local three-party races there. Linke took Kleiner Grasbrook-Steinwerder, which is mostly port area with a few blocks of late 19th century apartment housing on one edge. 286 votes in total, 23% Linke to 22% SPD (2 votes difference) Greens third (21%), Pirates at 13%, CDU 8%.

Willy Brandt's home town of Lübeck went 34.5 SPD vs. 33.7 CDU. Similar pattern: CDU strong in the still predominantly rural south, the more upscale parts towards the east, and tourism-oriented Lübeck-Travemünde on the sea shore. SPD dominates the rest of the city, albeit under heavy competition with the Greens in the inner city.
Luneburg city, which still had SPD fighting with Greens for first place in this spring's state election, was won by the CDU (31.6 vs. 29.8, Greens 17.7). The CDU picks up the suburbs, especially to the south and east, the Greens a number of precincts in the old town (you will again need to enlarge the map to spot them), while SPD maintains control of the more densely populated north-east.
Neumünster went 36.0 CDU to 35.8% SPD - quite a good result for the SPD, but with comparatively few votes sipped up by Greens and Linke, not enough to give them the upper hand.

Other cities/ towns: The SPD narrowly retained their traditional strongholds of Elmshorn (pop. 48.000, 35.3 vs. 35.1), Lauenburg/ Elbe (pop 11.500, 37.0 vs. 35.9), Glückstadt/ Elbe (pop. 11.800, 34.0 vs. 32.6), and picked up the small industrial town of Trappenkamp, 20 km east of Neumunster (pop 4,600, 36.9 vs. 36.8 ). As always, they swept the chalk mining / cement factory town of Lägerdorf , south of Itzehoe (pop. 3,000, 42.4 vs. 30.6). They finally landed a surprise win in Visselhövede's main town - the city overall (pop. 10,400), however, located in the sparsely populated Lüneburger Heide and including numerous outlying villages, was carried by the CDU.
But that's about it. Geesthacht (pop 30,000), once known as "little Moscow" was picked up by the CDU (35.0 vs. 34.5), as was Wedel (pop. 32,000, 35.2 vs. 33.7). If you take a closer look at the latter (located on the lower Elbe directly west of Hamburg), you can still see the city's historical split between Wedel proper (a bit more inland and to the west) and Schulau (directly on the river bank) - Wedel proper is black, Schulau red.
The SPD's situation in the cities and suburbs isn't as bad as it looks at first sight. They carried numerous precincts there, which, however, tend to be rather densely populated, small in size, and as such difficult to spot (to the extent precincts were mapped at all - for several towns such as Buxtehude and Uetersen, where the SPD carried some precincts, I could not find precinct delimitations). In fact, there is quite a number of smaller towns / suburbs where the SPD performed better than in Hamburg - it is just the CDU performing much better outside Hamburg (and Greens/ Linke comparatively worse) ultimately giving them the upper hand there. I will post a list of these cities separately.  

The countryside: In the northwest (Dithmarschen / Steinburg) the world is still in order. The SPD wins the cities (Glückstadt), or is at least competitive (Brunsbüttel, Meldorf, Itzehoe, Kellinghusen), while the countryside is black. The CDU's share tends to be strongly negatively correlated to population density, and it is pretty easy to figure out the course of the main roads and railway lines from the map above.
On the southern bank of the Elbe (Cuxhaven / State/ Rotenburg counties), the situation is not much different, except for the CDU also sweeping the small towns (52% in Bad Bederkesa, pop. 5,000). If you ever wondered where the border between the Hamburg and Bremen metros, and the catchment areas of Stade and Bremerhaven, runs -  a look at the map above will tell you.
The south-east would be similar,  if it hadn't been for the Gorleben nuclear waste dump shattering local farmers' trust in the CDU, and promoting influx of anti-nuclear activists from Hamburg, Berlin and elsewhere. However, it now provides the paradox picture of the CDU performing better in some small towns (e.g. Lüchow, Bad Bevensen) than in the surrounding countryside, with a number of rural communities being picked up by the SPD, and/or having Grüne close to 20%. The planned construction of the A39 motorway connecting Luneburg to Wolfsburg is apparently not meeting much local enthusiasm - note the belt of red (plus one green) villages along the proposed routes.
Ostholstein, in the north-east, seems to be on a similar path. Here, the issue is the planned Fehmarnbelt link to Denmark, especially the question whether (and where) a new railway line to cope with the projected 50 freight trains per day shall be built. The currently proposed line is marked by red dots in the map above...

Finally, the two remaining precincts won by the Greens: Ahrensburg-Wulfsdorf, directly on the Hamburg northeastern border, is home to a cooperative alternative housing project . Fredeburg, half-way between Ratzeburg and Mölln, hosts an eco-farming cooperative with annexed restaurants, and provided 10 of its 28 votes to the Greens.

Edit: Map corrected for minor mistakes on Dec. 1st

[Franknburger]

As announced, here a list of further cities in which the SPD performed better than in Hamburg (32.4%):

Hamburg suburbs:
Börnsen (pop. 4,300) SPD 33.1 CDU 37.5
Norderstedt (pop. 75,000): SPD 32.7, CDU 38.0
Glinde (pop. 17,700): SPD 33.6, CDU 38.7
Schenefeld (pop. 18,500): SPD 33.1 CDU 38.3
Tornesch (pop. 12,600): SPD 33.6 CDU 39.8
Uetersen (pop 17,600): SPD 33.9 CDU 38.7
Buxtehude (pop. 40,000): SPD 32.5 CDU 39.0
SG Horneburg (pop 11,900) SPD 32.7 CDU 42.4
SG Elbmarsch (pop. 12,000) SPD 33,6 CDU 38.3
Neu-Wulmstorf (core, w/o outlying villages, pop. 15,000): SPD 35.5 CDU 38.4

Lübeck suburbs:
Ratekau (pop. 15,100): SPD 33.4 CDU 39.4

Other Schleswig-Holstein cities/ towns:
Brunsbüttel (pop. 12,800) SPD 35.0. CDU 37.1
Bordesholm* (pop. 7,400) SPD 34.0 CDU 37.4
Fehmarn (pop. 12,400) SPD 36.0 CDU 39.1
Heiligenhafen (pop. 9,100) SPD 35.0 CDU 39.0
Itzehoe (pop. 31,000): SPD 32.5 CDU 36.8
Kellinghusen (pop. 7,800) SPD 32.5 CDU 36.7
Lensahn (pop 5,000): SPD 34.1 CDU 39.3
Marne (pop 5,700): SPD 33.5 CDU 40.4
Meldorf (pop 7,200): SPD 33.0 CDU 35.9
Neustadt/Holstein (pop 15,000): SPD 32.6 CDU 38.7
Oldenburg/Holstein (pop. 10,000): SPD 35.7 CDU 37.4
Preetz* (pop. 15,500): SPD 34.0 CDU 35.5
Wahlstedt (pop. 9,300) SPD 32.4 CDU 42.4

* Not part of Hamburg metro (outer Kiel suburb), but since it is in my map, it's included here as well for reference.

Other Lower Saxony cities/ towns:
Otterndorf/Elbe (pop. 7,100) SPD 35.9 CDU 41.9
SG Hemmoor (pop. 14,000): SPD 35.2 CDU 43.4
Drochtersen (pop. 11,300): SPD 33.8 CDU 47.3
Stade (pop. 45,200): SPD 34.1 CDU 39.5
Bremervörde (pop 18,600) SPD 32.4 CDU 46.9
Gnarrenburg (pop 9,200): SPD 37.0 CDU 43.5
Bleckede core, w/o outlying villages (pop. 5,000) SPD 33.8 CDU 36.0
Schneverdingen core, w/o outlying villages (pop. 12,000) SPD 33.1 CDU 41,9
Soltau core, w/o outlying villages (pop. 17,500) SPD 33.1 CDU 41.6
Uelzen (pop. 33,300) SPD 35.9 CDU 39.5
Ebstorf (pop. 5,400) SPD 33.9 CDU 43.4
Bad Bodenteich (pop. 3,800) SPD 33.5 CDU 41.3
Wrestedt (pop. 6,600) SPD 33.3 CDU 41.3

When compiling the list, I realised a few mistakes in my map. Burg/ Fehmarn, the island's main town, e.g., was narrowly won by the SPD. I will provide a corrected map a.s.a.p.

[Franknburger]

Here is the CDU map:



Not too different from the "leading party" map, of course - with one exception. Look at the light spots in inner Hamburg - there were six city districts where the CDU remained below 15%: Kleiner Grasbrook-Steinwerder (won by Die Linke), Sternschanze (won by the Greens), Veddel (next to Kleiner Grasbrook), St. Pauli, Altona-Nord and Altona-Altstadt (all next to Sternschanze), plus three more where the CDU stayed below 20%. Similar patterns of inner-city weakness can be found in Luneburg and in Lübeck, though not as extreme as in Hamburg. Last but not least, anti-nuclear mood in the Wendland (Lüchow-Dannenberg county) has kept the CDU at around 20% in some villages there.

However, as soon as you move out of "Green-Land" (or, more precisely - "Left-Green-Land"), the CDU reached at least close to 30%, even in traditional blue-collar SPD strongholds.

When looking at the map, it should also kept in mind that it excludes vote-by-mail. In urban areas, the CDU vote-by-mail result tended to be 3-4% better than their ballot box result, while in rural areas, and towns that incorporate a lot of surrounding small villages, they tend to perform slightly worse by mail than on the ballot box. With vote-by-mail usually accounting for 15-20% of the total vote, the difference between ballot-box vote and total vote is in most places only a fraction of a percent.

Hamburg, however, is different: There, nearly one-third of all votes were by mail, and the CDU performed almost 6% better by mail than at the ballot box! I have in the meantime been able to figure out the allocation of most Hamburg vote-by-mail precincts to city districts, and including them improves the CDU result by some 2% or more, depending on the district (it is, of course, far less in the inner city). As such, imagine the outer parts of Hamburg to be a bit darker than the above map shows.
 
[I had been wondering whether to use total votes instead of ballot-box votes for Hamburg in the map. But since everything else excludes vote-by-mail (can't be allocated to precincts), I decided against it. Furthermore, my calculated figures were not consistent with officially published data as concerns turnout, and I have in the meantime mailed to the Hamburg authorities to get some clarification. Once that has been received, I may do separate total vote maps for Hamburg only.]

Wondering what is behind the CDUs vote-by-mail advantage in Hamburg? According to the city's election analysis, 27% of CDU voters were older than 70 years. And the party with the biggest share of vote-by-mail in their total vote (50.3%) was the Pensioners' party...

[Franknburger]

Let's have a look at CDU strongholds: This is Bremervörde-Mehedorf (126 voters, 77,8% CDU):

.

Alright - flat, dispersed countryside. But there is one more remarkable pattern revealed by a closer look at the map. Below, I have marked electoral precincts and the CDU vote north-west of Bremervörde. Mehedorf is a bit south-east from the map centre. The underlying map is from 1895, as it makes the pattern more obvious (the map is still astonishingly accurate, things haven't changed much over the last 100 years in that area):


You note all the Moorhufendörfer - stretches of houses along one road, with narrow, long lots? The south and east of the map shows the upper end of the Teufelsmoor, drained and colonised in the 1750s. The north-western corner of the map covers the beginning of Langes Moor, another extended bog/ swamp area colonised in the 19th century. The Wesermünde Geest, a narrow stretch of elevated land separating the moors, contains older settlements which, though still in majority voting CDU, tend to do so at considerably lower levels than the moor colonies.

On to Odisheim (278 voters, 74.4% CDU):


Yes, another Moorhufendorf, this time at the northern end of Langes Moor (15km N of the map's NW corner). At the top of the photo, you may spot some houses of Stinstedt (209 voters, 76.8% CDU), and just behind the upper left corner lies Mittelsteinahe-Nordahn (145 voters, 79.9% CDU). The latter one is on the geest, though.

The village of Christinenthal, north of Itzehoe, tops it all at 82.4% CDU. 35 voters, and so insignificant that these are the only photos I could find on the internet:
 
Not a Moorhufendorf, just a former estate in a swampy depression. Danish government attempts for moor colonisation in the 1760s failed miserably. One reason was that they did not use locals - as south of the Elbe - but called in colonists from war-struck palatinate, leading to tensions between the existing  Danish/ Frisian / Holsten population and the immigrants. As such, the moors remained mostly unpopulated and only used for extracting peat as heating and manufacturing fuel. Moor colonisation only set in when inorganic fertiliser became available in the late 19th century, and peaked under Nazi rule. Nevertheless, Holsatian moors have remained even less and sparsely populated than those south of the Elbe.

Not that there aren't many moors in Holstein. Here a selection of localities in Steinburg county, which all gave more than 50% of their vote to the CDU: Moorhusen (61.5%), Altenmoor (60%), Kollmoor (60%), Kronsmoor (55.3%), Moordiek (54.9%), Wulfsmoor (52.6%), Westenmoor (51.2%). Let's add Silzen (-> salty/ acidic ground, 55.5%), and Fuhlendorf SE (foulish village, 55.8%). Heidmoor (49,7%) and Hasenmoor (48,9%) in northern Segeberg are not far from the A7, and in commuting range to Hamburg, Neumunster and Kiel.

Among the three northern German landscapes, marshes have been traditionally characterised by wealthy farmers benefitting from fertile soils, resulting in a liberal-conservative (libertarian) political attitude. The sandy, elevated geest is less conducive to agriculture, but contains the main roads. Here, trade and crafts developed, turning the areas reddish. Moors and heaths, with poor soils and lacking access to main roads / railroads, were always the poorhouses and characterised by out-migration. At least the latter has remained, and over-aging may be one factor to explain the strong CDU lean the moors have today.   

[Franknburger]

There actually should be quite some parallels to England, as we are talking about similar physical geographies and ethnic roots, and resulting social traditions, plus centuries (probably millenniums) of intensive trade links ...
[Might be interesting to later do Angeln - the original Anglia, east of the town of Schleswig - and compare it to East Anglia.}

P.S: The fact that from the mid-18th century until Queen Victoria the Kings of Hannover ruled England (or the other way round), and several of their daughters became Danish queens, has probably also brought forward some similarity in regional development approaches.

[Franknburger]

Stade is actually a bit disappointing for the SPD, considering its seaport history, and the fact it is quite industrialised (chemical industry, manufacturing of Airbus components), and also hosts a teacher college. The city has a SPD mayor, red-green controls the city council.

Gnarrenburg, OTOH, came as a surprise to me. The SPD won three of its 13 precincts. The core, consisting of the town itself (2 precincts), and  Karlshöfen to its south, went 44% SPD vs. 37.3% CDU. If it had not been for the outlying Moorhufendörfer (Augustendorf 58.4% CDU, Klenkendorf 52.9% CDU,, Fahrendorf 50.9% CDU, etc., reference map below), the SPD might have picked up the community as a whole.

Gnarrenburg is within commuting range to Bremen (40 km), which explains lower appeal to the CDU, and also elevated green shares in parts of the town  (12% in Klenkendorf). The SPD strength, however, appears to be a local phenomenon, and may relate to the fact that Europe's second largest manufacturer of lighting systems, Brilliant AG, is located in Gnarrenburg-Karlshöfen. Furthermore, a large plant in Gnarrenburg is packaging peat for home gardening purposes.  Apparently, there is heated local debate whether to continue moor exploitation (CDU) or put it under protection (SPD / Greens).

Another thing to consider is that Bad Bederkesa, at the heart of the "black belt", is the hometown of David McAllister, former CDU-MP of Lower Saxony. Locals may have looked for revenge on red-green throwing their favourite son out of office in this spring's state election.

As to tourism: Bremen is definitely worth seeing (one of the finest town squares in Germany), as is the artist town of  Worpswede. Remaining pieces of moor are worth a visit, especially if you are in ornithology, but you don't find them easily in the moor colonies anymore (just boring, drained, flat land with rather poor housing). Gnarrenburg-Augustendorf, with a local museum on the moor colonies' history, an ornithological observation point and a timbered path into a moor reserve nearby, appears to be a good spot, though I have never been there.
Stade's old town is of course great - not quite as nice as Lüneburg and Lübeck, but still. And when you are finished there, you may either take the ferry across the Elbe to visit the renaissance town of Glückstadt (an SPD stronghold), or look at the wealthy marsh farmers' houses in the "Altes Land". Take a ferry from there to Hamburg Blankenese, admire merchant palaces along the Elbchaussee, and continue to Altona's "Platz der Republik", the first stop of marines from Kiel on their way to bring the 1918 revolution to Berlin and the rest of Germany.  After a sundowner on the Elbe beach in Övelgönne (with a nice museum port) you can finally get lost in the St.Pauli nightlife.
Aside from - or in combination with - train and boat, bicycles are a great means of transport to explore the area - just make sure you go from west to east, with the wind.
(Anybody planning such a trip can send me a message for assistance, and a meeting should I have time).

Bremen town square:
 

Stade old town:


Glückstadt old port:


Farmhouse in the Altes Land (during cherry blossom, of course)


Hamburg-Blankenese (one of the "better addresses", as is said with hanseatic understatement; 48% CDU/ 12% FDP, vote-by-mail included):

[Franknburger]

Since it will take some time to complete the next election maps, in the meantime some background maps I came across a while ago: The Institute for Regional Research at the University of Kiel did a mapping of commuting intensities in Schleswig Holstein. From labour office data, they for each municipality extracted and then mapped the percentages of employees commuting to various local and regional centers: Data is from 2005, so the maps are a bit outdated as concerns details, but the general patterns are nevertheless interesting. They provide insight into suburbanisation patterns and exurban sprawl in the northern half of the Hamburg metro, which will be useful when interpreting voting patterns, especially the SPD and Green vote.

Below their mapping for commuting to Hamburg:



The pattern is generally concentric, though narrowing a bit to the north and north-east, i.e. Lübeck and Neumunster as other cities providing work opportunities. Nevertheless, note how close to Lübeck the Hamburg catchment area reaches. The commuting range widens towards the east (southern Herzogtum Lauenburg county), as there are few employment opportunities in neighbouring Mecklenburg.
You note that "white hole" east of Itzehoe - that's the Hörner Au Depression, where many of the moor villages listed above can be found. See the white belt north of Itzehoe - in there lies Christinenthal, which gave the CDU their top result.

Rail connections play an important role - look, e.g., at Glückstadt, itself a medium-sized town where one of Germany's largest paper factories is located. There are hourly express trains to Hamburg (45 minutes to central station), and additional connections with exchange at Pinneberg or Elmshorn. From Luneburg, you have fast trains every 30 minutes (30-35 minutes ride), the same applies to Lübeck (40 min. ride).  From Buchholz/ Nordheide it is only 20-25 minutes (3-4 trains/ hour), which means you can live somewhere around the town, do park & ride, and still get to Hamburg in decent time.  Local trains from Stade take a bit longer (50-60 minutes), but run every 15 minutes, and if you only get in at Buxtehude, its 40 minutes or less. Even from Rotenburg/ Wümme (90 km road distance from Hamburg) , an hourly express train gets you to Hamburg's centre in 50 minutes.  Uelzen (95km by road)? Hourly semi-direct trains (55-60 minutes), plus a couple of intercity trains per day that run the distance in 45 minutes at a slightly higher price.
As such, the catchment area to the south should at least be as large, probably larger, than the one the map displays to the north. The number of commuters from Luneburg city to Hamburg is estimated at more than 9,000, which would yield a commuting intensity above 30%.

Note furthermore that over the last decades a number of plants have re-located from Hamburg to the surrounding towns - pulled by lower local taxes, and pushed by the opportunity to cash in on their inner-city property. In addition, large retail outlets, especially for furniture and construction material / DIY have been established along the motorways leading in and out of Hamburg. Thus,, commuting to facilities that are more or less on the city border is relevant as well. The Kiel researchers have neither mapped all potential targets, nor combined them into aggregates. Nevertheless, in the following map I have compiled some of these secondary catchment areas, so you get an idea of their relevance.
Btw, the relation goes both ways. In 2011, some 50,000 persons commuted from Hamburg to Schleswig-Holstein, and another 15,000 to Lower Saxony (of which 5,000 to Lüneburg), meaning that around 10% of the Hamburg labour force works out of town.


As you see, I have also included Neumunster on the map. While extending considerably to the east and northwest, that city's catchment area only includes a few neighbouring municipalities to the south. Beyond, the focus already shifts towards Hamburg, plus other cities along the A7 corridor, especially Kaltenkirchen and Norderstedt.

[Franknburger]

As people from Frankfurt are reading this as well, let me mention a quite specific commuting pattern of which I know it exists, though I don't have an clear idea of its extent:

Several Lufthansa staff, especially pilots and stewardesses, are regularly commuting from the northern Hamburg periphery to Frankfurt, as Lufthansa provides air transport to and from the home location free of charge. According to the latest available commuting statistics (June 2012), some 5,500 persons commute from Hamburg, and 4,300 from Schleswig-Holstein to Hesse (5,000 / 1,900 in the opposite direction). An earlier analysis (2005) for Hesse showed approximately 40% of the commuters from Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein working in Frankfurt. Lufthansa staff may account for up to half of them (around 2,000). The remainder is probably mostly from the financial sector, spending the week in Frankfurt and the weekend with the family in Hamburg / Holstein, as a friend of mine did for a few years, before getting a CFO position in Hamburg. 

Another interesting commuting relation is Berlin->Hamburg (7,700;  4,000 in the opposite direction, both growing by some 4-5% p.a.). High-speed trains connect both cities in 100 minutes. Most of the people I know stay with a friend in Hamburg over the week (to the extent they work in Hamburg at all, and are not on mission elsewhere, e.g. as researcher with the Hamburg Institute for Tropical Diseases). A colleague of mine, working on a part-time contract (3 days a week) resides in Hannover, two more in Gottingen. Hamburg-Bremen commutes are anyway common (4,000 / 2,100).

Commuting between Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony is also quite intense (10,500 /15,100). Most of that should take place on the relation Geesthacht/Lauenburg <-> Lüneburg/Winsen (you may have noted that several communities across the Elbe from Geesthacht, on or close to the Geesthacht-Lüneburg highway, have been picked up by the SPD).

[Franknburger]

This is almost as bad as America.

Yes, of course! You know where the car and the autobahn were invented, don't you?

What started as an attempt to buy me some time has turned into analytical work of its own - anyway. I have compiled figures on employment by area (June 2012, i.e. seasonal peak, including tourism-related employment, which plays quite a role on the coasts):

Total employment in the area I am mapping (more or less, I left in eastern Lüchow-Dannenberg, but threw out those parts of Plön and Rendsburg-Eckernförde counties that are included in my map, but not part of the Neumunster periphery) stands at some 1.645 million, which breaks down as follows (all numbers in thousands):

Hamburg:                                 855 (52%)
Immediate periphery              164 (10%), ,of which
   Norderstedt                                                         30.5
   Ahrensburg/ GrHansdorf/Siek/Ammersbek             21.9
   Barsbüttel/Glinde/Oststeinbek                               14.6
   Halstenbek/ Rellingen/ Schenefeld                         14.5
   Seevetal /Stelle                                                    12.6  
   Reinbek/Wentorf                                                  11.4
   Pinneberg                                                            10.2
   Wedel                                                                 10.0
   Geesthacht                                                            9.4
Inner ring (~40 km)                 155 (9.5%), of which
   Elmshorn/ Horst/ Moorrege                                   18.6
   Buxtehude / Jork                                                  15.6
   Henstedt-Ulzburg/Kaltenkirchen                            15.4
   Buchholz/ Tostedt/ Jesteburg                                13.1
   Uetersen/ Tornesch                                              10.6
   Bad Oldesloe                                                        10.3
   Winsen/ Luhe                                                       10.2
   Mölln                                                                     5.8
Greater Lübeck                          122 (7.4%), of which
   Lübeck                                                                86.2
   Bad Schwartau/ Stockelsdorf/ Ratekau                  10.4
   Neustadt/ Holstein                                                 7.2
   Timmendorfer Strand / Scharbeutz                          5.7
   Ratzeburg                                                             4.9
Outer part SH                             144 (8.7%), of which
  Neumunster & surrounding                                     36.1
  Itzehoe/ Dägeling/ Lägerdorf                                  19.1
  Bad Segeberg/ Wahlstedt/ Trappenkamp                 15.5
  Heide & surrounding                                              11.9
  Eutin / Malente / Süsel                                           10.3
  Brunsbüttel / Marne/ Brokdorf                                  8.9
Outer part NDS                           206 (12.5%), of which              
    Luneburg & surrounding                                      44.8
    Stade / Drochtersen                                           26.8
    Uelzen / Bad Bevensen/ Wrestedt                        19.7
    Rotenburg (Wümme)/ Scheeßel                           14.8
    Zeven / Sittensen/ Heeslingen                             14.4
    Soltau                                                                10.2
    Bremervörde / Gnarrenburg                                 10.0
    Lüchow/ Dannenberg/ Hitzacker                             9.8

For comparison:
   Greater Kiel area                                               136.6
   Bremen (city only, excl. Bremerhaven)                247.9
   Bremerhaven                                                      48.7
   Region Hannover                                               451.0
    
If you look closer at the above locations, you can identify six major employment corridors, which coincide with population concentrations:
1. A7 north: Norderstedt-Kaltenkirchen-Neumunster (->Rendsburg/ Kiel)
2. A1 north: Barsbüttel/Glinde - Ahrensburg-Bad Oldesloe - Lübeck (->Copenhagen via Fehmarn / Sweden via ferry)
3. A39 / B4: Seevetal - Winsen - Lüuneburg - Uelzen (-> Wolfsburg/ Braunschweig)
4. A1 south: Seevetal - Buchholz - Zeven / Rotenburg (-> Bremen)
5. A 26 / B73: Buxtehude - Stade - Bremervörde / Cuxhaven
6. A 23: Halstenbek/Rellingen - Pinneberg - Elmshorn - Itzehoe - Heide

In addition, you have a numbers of secondary corridors:
7a. A 24: Barsbüttel/ Glinde - Schwarzenbek - Mölln (->Berlin)
7b. Old B5: Reinbek - Geesthacht - Lauenburg (->Berlin)
8. A7 South: Seevetal - Schneverdingen- Soltau (->Hannover)
9. Lower Elbe north bank: Wedel - Glückstadt - Brunsbüttel
10. B 432: Norderstedt - Bad Segeberg - Neustadt/Eutin (->Fehmarn->Copenhagen)

There is furthermore a number of tangential connections. An outer ring, consisting of:
11. B 76: Kiel-> Plön -> Eutin -> Lübeck (mostly 4-lane highway)
12. Old Salt Route (B209/ B 207): Lübeck - Ratzeburg - Mölln - Lauenburg - Lüneburg - Soltau (mostly highway)
13: B 71: Uelzen-Munster-Soltau-Rotenburg - Zeven - Bremervörde
14: B 495; Bremervörde - Glückstadt (via car ferry) -from there the Stör river through Itzehoe and Kellinghusen to Neumunster served as traditional connection, though not today anymore.

Plus the following Hamburg bypasses:
15.  A21/ B 404: Kiel - Bad Segeberg - Bad Oldesloe - Schwarzenbek -Geesthacht - Luneburg (joinng the B4 towards Uelzen-Wolfsburg-Braunschweig)
16.  B3; (Hannover-Celle-) Soltau - Buchholz - Buxtehude (->via Jork and ferry - only passengers today - to Wedel) - B 431 to Uetersen - Elmshorn - Izehoe - Rendsburg (western branch of the Ox Road)
17.  A 20 / B 206: (Rostock - Wismar-) Lübeck - Bad Segeberg - Bad Bramstedt -Itzehoe  (motorway finished to Bad Segeberg, construction to Bad Bramstedt on A7 decided, but stopped by Federal Court due to serious planning irregularities, further extension to Itzehoe and beyond to Glückstadt, Drochtersen/ Stade and Bremervörde projected, but under heavy discussion because of questionable economic feasibility - but that's another story.)

If you miss a southern Hamburg bypass - the system of motorway junctions in Seevetal and Buchholz, south of Hamburg, actually turns corridors 3, 4 & 5 in such a bypass.

Nevertheless - as you may already have noted - the Lower Elbe and her marshes, once the region's main transport arterial and source of wealth, have increasingly become a barrier to infrastructure and economic development. The Elbe tunnel on the A7, just west of the Hamburg port area, and the westernmost possibility to cross the river by road, is chronically congested. Accordingly, the development focus is shifting eastward, and Dithmarschen / Steinburg, and the Elbe-Weser triangle around Bremerhaven and Cuxhaven, have been moving into economical off-side. Bremerhaven has this year picked up the "red lantern" as city/county with the highest unemployment in all of Germany (but that is yet another story about a failed policy to develop offshore wind energy with Bremerhaven as manufacturing and logistics hub).  
 

[Franknburger]

Alright - why all this talk in my previous post? The Kiel researchers have also mapped commuter catchment areas against each other. As their research had a clear political background (I will come to that later), I wanted to check some data first before presenting these maps. Below is their mapping for several employment centers to the NW of Hamburg (A 23 corridor). They as well did the north-east (A1 corridor), though not the central A7 corridor.



The map here displays the dominating center - additional maps point out zones of overlap.

Note first of all that they only have mapped a selection of commuting targets. They did in particular not include Hamburg, probably because with Hamburg there would not have been any red (Pinneberg), and hardly any green (Elmshorn) left  Look at Glückstadt, e.g. - it was in the 15-25% range for commuting to Hamburg, while commuting to Elmshorn is in the 5-10% range.
Around Pinneberg city, there are a number of other relevant employment centers - Wedel, Halstenbek, Rellingen, Uetersen/Tornesch, which obviously restricts the city's outreach. More importantly, Norderstedt provides three times as many jobs as Pinneberg city, and is attracting far more commuters from the east of the county than the county capital. Further up to the NW, a similar effect is visible for and around Marne and Brunsbüttel (especially the latter is an important local employment hub).

Nevertheless, the map demonstrates that the further you get away from Hamburg, the larger the commuting ranges / catchment areas become. The overlap maps furthermore show that commuting generally goes only one-way - towards Hamburg. You find a considerable number of communities in the Heide catchment area with commuting to Itzehoe, but none the other way round. The same holds in general true for the Elmshorn vs. Itzehoe relation, though the border between both  cities' catchment areas is a bit less clear-cut.



Elmshorn, OTOH, is an economic center in its own right that attracts also commuters from Pinneberg city and its northwestern periphery (though not anymore from Wedel, Halstenbek or Rellingen).  Its economic structure goes far beyond greenfield manufacturing and retail, and includes:
- Food Industry (Kölln - cereals, Hareico - saussages, Asmussen - spirits, etc.)
- Interiors (2C Furniture, Teppich Kibek - one of Germany's largest carpet retailers)
- Deutsche Tamoil, a medium-scale petrol distributer
- the German HQ of Swedish car supplier Autolix
- a major network service center of Deutsche Telekom (the Elmshorn-based telecom operator talkline, however, was taken over in 2007 by debitel, and the Elmshorn operation was closed in 2010, resulting in more than 500 job losses).

[Franknburger]

I have combined a number of commuting and catchment area maps in the map below, which also provides some more insight into the structure of the metro area (at least its northern part):



In addition to the catchment areas themselves, pay attention to commuting intensities at their borders. Commuting gets infrequent, and erratic as concerns the target city, between Itzehoe, Neumunster, Rendsburg and Heide. That's rather commuting out of need than out of free will.

To the north-east of Hamburg, OTOH, Hamburg (plus immediate suburbs such as Ahrensburg, Glinde, Reinbek & Geesthacht), Lübeck, and the medium-sized cities of Mölln, Bad Oldesloe, Bad Segeberg and Eutin provide for quite a selection of commuting targets with considerably overlapping catchment areas. Stormarn county is traditionally having one of the lowest unemployment rates in Germany north of the Main (4.0% in November 2013).

The impact can be seen on the following map of 2006 land prices (excuse the poor quality, I just copied it from a pdf publication, only edited the legend): While to the west of Hamburg, land prices drop sharply once you get out of manageable commuting distance to Hamburg, to the north-east they remain in moderate (full yellow to orange) terrain.



Aside from the immediate Hamburg periphery, tourist resorts stand out pricewise - especially posh Sylt and Timmendorfer Strand (directly north of Lübeck). Timmendorfer Strand recently was listed as the city with the third-highest accommodation rates in Germany, after Hamburg and Munich. My personal favourites, namely St. Peter Ording (west coast), Amrum, and Hohwacht (north of Eutin), are (unfortunately)not far behind in real estate prices. This has, among others, to do with a boom in building "senior residences". I am not sure whether that qualifies as 'gentrification', but the effects are similar: Wealthy seniors crowd on the coast, those taking care of them can't afford to live there anymore and move inland instead. The electoral impact is also not difficult to guess, and will be well visible on the SPD map to come.

Timmendorfer Strand:


 

Hohwacht:



St. Peter-Ording:

 

[Franknburger]

Before posting the SPD map, let's put their overall result in the Hamburg metro in context:

In and around Hamburg, the SPD has traditionally been over performing their national result by some 4-5 per cent. That is not as much as in Bremen/Oldenburg/ East Frisia, and Hannover/ Southern Low Saxony/ North Hesse, where the SPD tends to do more than 10% better than in the national average, but it puts the Hamburg metro at par with North-Rhine Westfalia as a whole, and considerably before other metro areas such as Berlin, Munich, or Rhein-Main.

Below, I have compiled the local vs. federal SPD spread over the last four federal elections for those regions/constituencies where the borders have more or less remained unchanged since 2002:

Hamburg (whole city):            3.5 - 4.5 - 4.4 - 7.3 (trend 2.9)
Lübeck (constituency):            9.1 - 9.1 - 7.1 - 9.0 (trend 1.9)
Neumünster-Plön (const.):      6.0 - 5.2 - 5.5 - 7.5 (trend 2.0)
Ostholstein-Stormarn N:         5.5 - 4.5 - 5.2 - 6.4 (trend 1.2)
Segeberg-Stormarn Mitte:       2.3 - 2.7 - 2.1 - 5.0 (trend 2.9)
Lauenburg-Stormarn S:          1.5 - 1.5 - 2.4 - 4.6 (trend 2.2)
Pinneberg (constituency):       3.2 - 3.0 - 3.2 - 6.1 (trend 2.9)
Steinburg-Dithmarschen S:     2.7 - 2.1 - 2.0 - 4.9 (trend 2.9)
Luneburg Lüchow/Danneberg  5.0 - 4.4 - 1.7 - 3.9 (trend 2.2)
Celle-Uelzen:                         5.8 - 6.3 - 4.2 - 5.0 (trend 0.8 )

In 2009, Lower Saxony gained one constituency at the expense of Saxony-Anhalt, leading to the creation of Harburg constituency, and subsequent reorganisation of various other constituencies in the Elbe-Weser region. 2005 results have retroactively been recalculated  according to the new constituencies by election authorities, but I haven't come across recalculations for earlier elections. [Note that the reorganisation also affected Luneburg constituency, which until 2009 included the rural eastern parts of Harburg county]:

Harburg:                                     2.6 - 1.5 - 3.2 (trend 1.7)
Cuxhaven-Stade II                       9.9 - 7.3 - 8.4 (trend 1.1)
Stade I - Rotenburg II                  5.9 - 3.9 - 5.8 (trend 1.9)
Rotenburg I - Heidekreis               6.5 - 4.5 - 6.1 (trend 1.6)

The positive SPD trend in the metro area is something you would expect from a Hamburg-born, Kiel-trained candidate, as Per Steinbrück is. However, while it is in many cases no more than a correction of a negative 2009 trend, some constituencies such as Pinneberg, Segeberg-Stormarn,M and Lauenburg - Stormarn S appear to be permanently "reddening" (at least in relative terms, compared to Germany as a whole). Yeah, that's commuterland - working in Hamburg, voting like Hamburg.

[Franknburger]

Here now the SPD map:



At first sight, it seems difficult to identify clear patterns. Specifically, this is not a "negative" of the CDU map posted before. Outside the commuting belt around Hamburg, in particular to the west and south of it, elections are still very much a 2-party race between CDU and SPD. Other parties, especially AfD and Linke, but in many places also Greens and FDP, don't play much of a role. In the CDU map, I set the maximum colour at 60%, thereby not capturing the nuances between, say, 62% CDU and 78% CDU. In the absence of significant third party competition, the former still allows respectable SPD results around 30%. As such, what was more-less contiguous "black belts" on the CDU map now shows up as several moor depressions on the SPD map, separated by transport corridors along which the SPD is doing quite reasonably.

The following transport (commuting) corridors are well visible:
- A 23 from Hamburg to Heide via Elmshorn and Itzehoe,
- Western B5, especially the Dithmarschen part between Brunsbüttel and Heide via the small towns of Marne and Meldorf
- A 24/ B 404 Kiel - Bad Segeberg - Bad Oldesloe, plus its southern part between Geesthacht and Luneburg
- B4 Luneburg-Uelzen->Wolfsburg
- B 74 Stade - Bremervörde - Gnarrenburg ->Bremen/ Bremerhaven
Note that these corridors primarily serve for commuting to the next local centre, but also facilitate longer-range commuting to Hamburg / Kiel / Wolfsburg (VW HQ/plant) / Bremen.

Commuting / suburbanisation has blurred the distinction between cities and periphery. The SPD share in Hamburg (vote-by-mail included) of 32.4% is only slightly higher than their share in the adjacent counties of Pinneberg (31.2), Steinburg (30.5), Herzogtum Lauenburg (29.9), Segeberg (29.8 ), and Stormarn (29.7). Harburg county, south of the Elbe, is a bit below at 28.3 - one factor is the AfD's local strength, but I need to look into that county  in more detail later.

In commuting-intensive Stormarn, there is hardly a community where the SPD has remained below 25%. While I haven't checked on it systematically, the SPD appears to have done particularly well in smaller communities that have over the last years developed new sites for individual housing. Points in case are Tremsbüttel (pop. 2,000, up from 1.650 in 2002, SPD 30.1), and Delingsdorf (pop. 2,200, up from 1,600 in 2002, SPD 34.0), both next to Bargteheide NE of Hamburg. Borstel-Hohenraden, directly north of Pinneberg city (pop. 2.250, up from 1.900 in 2002, SPD 31.8 ) fits here as well, as does Marschacht, south of Geesthacht across the Elbe (pop. 3.700, up from 3.500 in 2002, SPD 34.1, up to 39.4% in precincts especially affected by housing development).
There hasn't been much of housing development in Hamburg over the last decade, with the exception of Neu-Allermöhe (SPD 35.9), south of Bergedorf proper. The same applies to many neighbouring towns, with the exception of Glinde (SPD 30.0-34.4 in development areas), Ahrensburg-Gartenholz (SPD 32.5-34.9), the southern end of Bargteheide (SPD 35.9), and Bönningstedt-Bendloh (SPD 31.3).



While Hamburg in average is a bit younger as Germany as a whole, this relates primarily to the inner city. The outer parts, and especially quarters with middle-class individual housing (Rissen, Niendorf, Rahlstedt, Hummelsbüttel, southern Harburg borough) are over-aged. Essentially, people (including my parents and my in-laws) stay in the house they built/purchased in the 1970s/80s, even though their children have long moved out, and the house is much larger than needed by an elderly couple. Low supply of individual housing means that, unless you are really affluent, there is hardly an alternative to moving out of town. So the economically active population goes to the outer sub- and exurbs, turning them mildly red, while outer Hamburg ages, and votes accordingly (lean CDU).

The SPD map suggests similar patterns for several small towns (Ratzeburg, Bad Oldesloe, Uelzen, Neustadt/Holstein, Oldenburg/Holstein), where part of the periphery is "redder" than the city itself.

[Franknburger]

A bit more on the SPD: First of all, there are still precincts where the SPD gets the majority, not just the plurality of votes. In fact, there has been one - Uelzen-Riestedt, a small village 9 km NE of Uelzen's city centre. 30 out of 57 votes for the SPD (52.6%).



It looks like a rather well-off, but otherwise typical Low Saxon village. If Google maps aerials can be trusted, there hasn't changed much since the above photos were taken. I counted around ten houses that seem younger than fifty years.

 

The picture above (taken at the jubilee of the local voluntary fire-fighters in 2009) shows a sample of 15% of the voters. The voting station was in the building they are standing in front of -  their assembly hall - so you can bet that every fire fighter voted. They most likely turned it into a social event...

I don't have the faintest idea why this place gave the SPD their best result. O.k. - no votes for FDP, Linke and AfD, just two votes (3.5%) for the Greens, plus one each for NPD and Animal Protection Party - that's fitting, and guaranteeing the SPD a decent share. Still, it should have been 55% CDU vs. 40% SPD, not the other way round...

[Franknburger]

On with something more simple - the SPD's best districts in Hamburg. Steilshoop, Billstedt, Wilhelmsburg, traditional working-class quarters, having the SPD around or above 40%. Oh, wait - these places haven't been in the news over the last thirty years for being working-class, but rather for this:


Steilshoop


Billstedt-Mümmelmannsberg


Wilhelmsburg - Kirchdorf Süd

Looks like a pattern - so probably Hausbruch has a similar SPD share... In fact, it hasn't - it went 37.0 CDU vs. 33.8 SPD.

Hausbruch - Neuwiedenthal

And why did Wilstorf give the SPD their fourth-best result (40.1%, vote-by-mail included)?

Yeah - Wilstorf possesses some 1970s architectural treasures, but also contains parts you would rather expect to vote Green or Linke, than SPD (late 19th century extension of Harburg's city core):


So, the prevailing housing explains at best some of the SPD strength (or weakness). Next theory - remembering what Billstedt and Wilhelmsburg have become infamous for: Elevated shares of immigrants. Actually, not the immigrants per se - that would rather promote voting for AfD and NPD, if we weren't in Hamburg, which already in the 18th century had more than 25% non-German citizens, and is pretty immune to xenophobia. Rather, I was thinking about German citizens with migration background. Tourism entrepreneur Vural Öger joining Hamburg's SPD in the 1980s had boosted the party's standing with naturalized Turks, and Aydan Ozoguz, deputy party chair and since this week Federal Commissioner for Integration, running in the Hamburg-Wandsbek constituency should have helped further with that part of the electorate. Now, guess which district has the third-highest share of citizens with immigration background (42 %) - CDU-leaning Hausbruch. Next theory, please!

There is a good and up-to-data database on socio-economic indicators per Hamburg city district available, linked to an online mapping tool, so I checked out various factors: Single parents? Too small in number (typically 4-8% of all households) to explain the variation. Singles? Lowest share in Lemsahl-Mellingstedt (27.1% SPD), followed by Neu-Allermöhe (35.9% SPD). Ultimately, we are talking about a variety of factors, some of which I have combined in the map below so you can try to put the puzzle together for yourself  (don't forget the age map that I already posted above).



On the Hamburg SPD map, I have used a different colour scheme than in the metro area map in order to make variation among districts more visible. Different from the metro area map, the Hamburg-only map is including vote-by-mail.

On the population density map, note that quite some area is covered by water, so several districts along the Elbe and the Alster lake in the city centre are more dense than the map suggests. There is also substantial terrain covered by transport facilities and industry. Aside from the port area, you may be able to spot Fuhlsbüttel airport's runways in that district's borders (light green, to the north of the city centre), and the runway of the Finkenwerder Airbus assembly plant that has been built into what used to be a much larger bay on the southern bank of the Lower Elbe.

For all the maps and analysis, I myself still don't fully understand the SPD's pattern, e.g. their quite good performance in Bergstedt (the full red circle up north-east, in the posh Walddörfer). Maybe, a more detailed breakdown by precinct, or at least by quarter, could help. OTOH, their top 3 precincts were here (62.5%), here (57.9%), and here (55.0%). No 2 is clear - that's Kirchdorf-Süd (see photo above). 85-90% of the school kids there have migration background, so the SPD must have picked up a substantial part of the naturalised Germans' vote (even at the precinct's low vote participation rate of only 35.6%) But for the other two precincts, I don't have much of a clue. They both look like they should lean SPD. However, just 5 kilometres to the east of no.3, you find a precinct that looks quite similar, but was won 41.5 to 33 by the CDU (Oststeinbek 1, only the part south of the main road).

[Franknburger]

Percentage of the population who are ethnic Germans over 65 is something to check. Also remember that Deutsche mit Migrationshintergrund does include the Russians and Romania Germans and such.

The database does neither include information on ethnicity (just nationality, which we all know may be a quite different thing, especially when it comes to Russian/ Kazakh Germans), nor is nationality fully broken up by age (they just provide the share of under-18 foreigners).

As to Germans with migration background -this is Hamburg, so things get even more complicated:
- Traditionally the largest Chinese community in Central Europe (Tsingtao, Shanghai as sister city, etc.)
- Strong Iranian (& Afghan) community (major carpet trading location, reinforced by late 1970s emigration) - I guess they account for a good part of the Germans with migration background in the posh quarters,
- Quite a number of traders / purchasers with spouses from South-East Asia or Latin America (a friend of mine, daughter to a German father and an Argentine mother, and herself working in import / export, should technically also count as "German with migration background"),
- For historical reasons (Danish triangle trade, shipping goods manufactured in Wandsbek via the port of Altona to Fort Christiansborg / Accra, exchanging them into slaves that were sold on the Virgin Islands to US importers) quite a Ghanaian community - an Ashanti who has lived some time in Europe is referred to as "Burger", guess which city that relates to ...

Plus naturalised refugees from former Yugoslavia, second / third generation Italians, and numerous Dutch, Danes and Swedes with German spouses.

As long as we are talking a clearly delineated area, such as Kirchdorf-Süd, which is Turkish-dominated, "Germans with migration background" may have an explanatory value for election results. As an aggregate indicator, however, it comprises too many subgroups that differ widely in socio-economic status and political beliefs.

[Franknburger]

On with something more simple - the SPD's best districts in Hamburg. Steilshoop, Billstedt, Wilhelmsburg, traditional working-class quarters, having the SPD around or above 40%. Oh, wait - these places haven't been in the news over the last thirty years for being working-class, but rather for this:


Steilshoop

Shouldn't this place vote like 50% SPD and 25% Linke? This about as working class as you can get(in Germany).

Well, it was 43% SPD and 11% Linke, the SPD's best district in Hamburg. Linke is strongest in districts undergoing gentrification (more on that later) - I guess their appeal to voters with migration background is rather limited.

In terms of social structure:
- 18.5% over 65 (Hamburg average 18.9%)
- 19.3% non-Germans
- 43.3% of the population / 29.6% of German citizens have migration background
- 8% of households are single parents
- 9,1% unemployment
- 22.4% receiving minimum assistance (SGB II -  "Hartz IV")
- 32.5 m² average housing size per person (Hamburg average: 37.0)
- 33.2% of children attending "Gymnasium" (pre-high school/ high school, Hamburg average is 47.3 %)
- 1.04 crimes per inhabitant/year (Hamburg average 1.30, but that average is blown up by downtown shoplifting. Wandsbek borough, of which Steilshoop is part, has 0.87 as average)
- 0.05 violent crimes per inhabitant/ year - slightly elevated for a district that doesn't have night life.

Definitely one of the socially weakest quarters, though not quite as weak as Billstedt, Wilhemsburg, Jenfeld and Veddel. It is the most centrally located of the 1970s housing estates, in walking/ cycling distance to secondary entertainment districts such as Barmbek and Winterhude, and as such likely to on the medium term face gentrification, once the process is through in Veddel, upper Wilhemsburg, and Dulsberg.

The German "ideal" of  working class is ethnic German blue-collar males (the mechanic / construction worker type), of which you probably find some, but not too many in Steilshoop. When (female) part-time supermarket cashiers, Döner shop helpers from the owner's extended family, free-lance car mechanics preparing used cars for export etc. are subsumed here as well (they are definitely working, 'class' is the term open for arguing) - yeah, this is probably as working class as it can get in Germany.

[Franknburger]

Some time ago I read an article about the voting behaviour of German citizens with "migration background" (particularly Turkish, Ex-Soviet, Polish, Romanian). I think that Linke support among voters of Turkish background (including of course all minorities living in Turkey) was clearly above average, though you could argue that German-Germans from a similar socio-economic background would vote similarly.

Do you have a link on the article? Do you remember what it said on the Ex-Soviet Union vote (I always suspected they might lean CDU) ?

Hamburg has a pretty good statistics on persons with migration background, and I have been digging a bit more into their figures:

1. Turkish background: 18 % of all people with migration background, 5.3% of total population. 46% had been naturalised by early 2012. At the current naturalisation rate of 2.5%, it will just take a few more years until more than half of them have become German citizens. For Hamburg as a whole, we are just talking some 2.5% of eligible voters, but in several districts, they make up for more than 10% of the electorate.
If there is a Linke preference among people with Turkish background, it is not yet becoming apparent in Hamburg. Below, I compare the Turkish and Linke shares, respectively, for the Top 5 Linke and Turkish districts:

St. Pauli:          T 10.3   L 22.2
Sternschanze:   T  9.7    L 22.1
Kl. Grasbrook    T  7.0   L 19.5
Altona-Altstadt  T 13.5   L 18.9
Altona-Nord      T 11.4   L 17.8

Veddel              T 24.5  L 16.2
Neuenfelde        T 23.4  L  7.0
Wilhelmsburg    T 22.4  L 12.6
Altona-Altstadt  T 13.5   L 18.9
Cranz               T 12.0  L   6.8

2. Polish background: 13% of all people with migration background, 3.8% of total population. 66.6% naturalised, accounting for some 2.5% of eligible voters. 70-75% of Poles that have become German citizens since 2005 are women, in majority married (and, as a look at the figures makes obvious, mostly not to a Polish husband). They are under-represented in high-income districts, but otherwise far less locally clustered than other migrant groups. I would assume them to not vote much different from ethnic German low to middle income, middle-aged, urban women, i.e. strong SPD (well, the catholic roots might have some influence, nevertheless, socio-demographically they should at least lean SPD).



3. Former Soviet Union (FSU) 14% of all people with migration background, 4.1% of total population. Over 80% naturalised, or Russian/ Kazakh Germans, accounting for slightly more than 3% of eligible voters. Among those that have been naturalised, the female share ranges between 60 % (Russia, Kazakhstan) and above 75% (Lithuania). I guess we have at least two distinct patterns to consider, namely (i) ethnic Eastern Europeans, married to a German partner, reasonably integrated, and living dispersed - similar pattern, presumably also voting behaviour, as people with Polish background; and (ii) Russian/ Kazakh Germans that, in spite of their German roots, tend to form a distinct sub-culture and, especially in the middle age groups, have language problems. The latter appear to cluster in Hausbruch/ Neugraben and Lohbrügge/Bergedorf/ Neu-Allermöhe. In Hausbruch, FSU immigrants account for more than 25% of eligible voters and might be the reason why that district leaned CDU, even though it by all other socio-economic criteria should be an SPD stronghold.
A third sub-group, Eastern European Jews, may be the reason for a relatively high share of FSU migrants in "posh" Rotherbaum - the old Jewish quarter. German Jews are traditionally leaning towards the FDP, but I have no idea whether that also holds true for the community's more recent
reinforcement from Eastern Europe.

4. Afghans: Unfortunately, from here on official statistics only report qualitative statements, but no numbers anymore. Nevertheless, in Hamburg in 2012, Afghans were #4 in terms of migration background, #3 in terms of registered foreigners, and #2 in terms of naturalisations. Their naturalisation rate is far above average at around 10% p.a.,  and one-third of all Afghans that became German citizens in 2012 did so in Hamburg. As a qualified guess, I would put them at around 20,000 (1.2% of the total population) in Hamburg, 40% naturalised Germans. They especially cluster in Rahlstedt, Jenfeld and Billstedt - the three districts to the east of town, where Hamburg forms a bay.

5. Iranians are next in terms of migration background, though only #8 in terms of registered foreigners (but '# 3 when it comes to naturalisations). I assume a  naturalisation of 65-70%, since many Iranians already came to Hamburg after the Iranian revolution in the late 1970s. Those that have been in Hamburg for longer tend to be well integrated and often quite affluent. However, immigration (and naturalisation) is continuing to date, and the newcomers may be socially less advanced, and voting accordingly.

Next on the list are Serbia (including Kosovo, and that appears to be the main source), Ghana, Portugal, Italy, and Greece. Except for Ghana, the a/m countries also rank high in terms of registered foreigners, which leads me to assume a rather low naturalisation rate (though naturalisation of Greeks has been picking up more recently). For Ghanaians, however, we may talk about a naturalisation rate in the range of 50% or more. Ghanaians, as well as Serbians/ Kosovarians, are particularly frequent in Billstedt. The Portuguese community is strong in Wilhelmsburg.

Rather under-represented in comparison to other parts of Germany are Romanians and North Africans. Among the latter, only Egyptians are shown separately in the statistics on registered foreigners (rank 30).  Romania lies behind China, both in terms of registered foreigners, and of naturalisations (when it comes to naturalisation, Togo, Nigeria, Vietnam, India, and Pakistan also beat Romania),

[Franknburger]

Thanks for the links, palandio! My assessment was based on 'gut feeling' and stuff I have heard from my children about their classmates with (partly Jewish) CIS roots, which is of course anything but representative. However, in general the studies appear to confirm my gut feeling.

Let me point out a few things:
1. The Hamburg SPD has made a deliberate attempt to reach out to voters with Turkish background. I can imagine several other regional SPD chapters, e.g. on the Ruhr (many people with Turkish roots working in the car industry and being union members) doing the same, but I am not sure whether the SPD as a whole has realised the potential significance of 2nd/ 3rd generation Turkish immigrants (especially also the female half). As such, when it comes to naturalised Turks, observations from Hamburg may not be representative for Germany as a whole.

2. The traditional Russian/ Kazakh German immigrant, coming with the whole family,  is increasingly getting replaced by individual CIS immigrants - young, pre-dominantly female, typically from an urban background. Both groups should differ considerably in their voting behaviour, and what might at first view look like a shift in Russian/ Kazakh Germans' political attitudes, may in fact relate to that new generation of CIS immigrants. OTOH, there is the small industrial town of Trappenkamp, half-way between Bad Segeberg and Neumunster, often referred to by locals as "Little Almaty", which swung from CDU to SPD this year. Kazakh Germans are quite demanded for their metalworking skills - after a few years in such jobs, they might just vote as other metalworkers, i.e. lean SPD.


Trappenkamp (pop. 4.600), emerged from a WWII ammunition depot in the forest, and a pretty weird place - kind of a Hamburg suburb implanted into rural Holstein.

3. I have noted with interest from the studies cited that immigrants from former Yugoslavia are the most left-leaning immigrant group, with the largest preference for Die Linke. Makes sense to me - Yugoslavian communism was a special breed - and answers one of my open questions.

Now the tricky questions: Any idea how people with Afghan roots may vote ? My guess - strong abstention rate, otherwise similar to naturalised Turks.
Ghanaians (and other West Africans - Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon)? I'd say they over proportion lean Green, but that's wild guessing again... 

[Franknburger]

Good remarks, palandio, especially the reminder about Sarrazin (I already had forgotten about him). Except for that temporary issue, however, I am not sure that the voting pattern shift between 1st and 2nd/3rd Turkish generation is very pronounced, if there is one at all:

a. In the 1970s/ 80s, there was a lot of immigration of relatives of the original "guest workers". One may argue they are 2nd generation (children and nephews that initially had remained in Turkey until the original guest workers realised that there stay in Germany was more than just temporarily), but - born and raised in Turkey - I tend to qualify them as 1st generation as well. That wave was more of the "Kreuzberg type" (grocery, Döner, backyard car mechanics etc.), and is, e.g., dominating in Hamburg's  inner city districts (St. Pauli, Altona, St. Georg). [There may also have been a number of "guest workers" (shipbuilding, Airbus, Daimler-Benz assembly) coming to Hamburg, though I am not really aware of them. Maybe they, as their employers,  reside rather south of the Elbe, which has never been my prime terrain.] In any case, the "Kreuzberg type" has already been part of the 1990s Turkish background electorate, which, according to the sources provided by you, heavily leaned towards the SPD.

b. Sarrazin is nothing compared to CDU / CSU hardliners of the Gauweiler type. As such, for all their social conservatism and micro-entrepreneurism, I can't see many people with Turkish background voting CDU. By the turn of the millennium, Eberhard Diepgen thought Berlin's CDU might have a chance with "Kreuzberg type" Turks, but failed bitterly. Of course, for socio-demographic reasons, and people like Cem Özdemir, the Greens have strong appeal to higher educated people with Turkish background. However, unfortunately, people with Turkish background still underperform in the German education system, which should limit the Greens' (and FDP's) outreach. While not completely impossible, I furthermore have problems imagining a grocery or Döner shop owner voting Linke. What does that leave male 2nd/ 3rd generation Turks with? Vote abstention, Islamism, or the SPD.

c. You need to consider the female vote as well. Male, 1st generation guest workers may have overwhelmingly voted SPD. Their spouses (once they had followed their husbands to Germany)? Many of them probably did not vote at all. The daughters and grand-daughters should be quite different - rebelling against rigid social control imposed on them by their fathers (and brothers), possibly subject to arranged marriage, but also having access to means for financial and social emancipation. They should in majority vote SPD, with a substantial part going for the Greens, eventually also Linke.

d. So far on the push factors. Now the pull: Vural Öger, the prototype of the self-made Turkish entrepreneur (and a very successful one), assumes a leading position in the Hamburg SPD. Aydan Özoguz, an emancipated, Turkish-background woman - in a socially accepted way, married and with children -  becomes SPD federal board member, and runs in the Hamburg-Wandsbek constituency.
According to the official election analysis, the SPD's biggest gains were among 25-34 year old men (+8.3%), the sub-group that had the biggest increase in vote participation (+2.7). The second-biggest gain was among 35-44 year old women (+6.5%), the group where the Greens lost most (-5.8%). While there are most likely several other factors in play as well, the pattern is consistent with increased mobilisation of 2nd/ 3rd generation Turks by the SPD.

2. I agree that for their sheer number, Spätaussiedler will for quite some time dominate the CIS-background vote. However, the latest microcensus already records some 370,000 adult German citizens with CIS background that are not Spätaussiedler.

I seriously hope that you are right on the integration of 2nd-generation Spätaussiedler, though looking at the ex-classmates of my children (most of them had to leave school in the meantime) is making me sceptical. Language isn't the problem (having German-speaking grandparents helps), but they nevertheless need to cope with a quite different cultural set-up (plus small-town high-school teachers that are neither experienced with nor sensitive for their specific support needs, and choose the easy way of dumping them into the "Hauptschule").

[Franknburger]

Moving on to the Greens..

Before posting the map, I think it is useful to provide especially the non-German readers with some background on the Wendland:

"Wenden" is the traditional Germanic term for Slavonic people. During the Migration Period, they expanded into Northern Germany, up to a line that approximately runs from Kiel via Bad Segeberg, Bad Oldesloe, Geesthacht, Luneburg and Uelzen into today's border between Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. After centuries of sometimes peaceful, sometimes violent cohabitation (late 8th century Carolingian-Slavonic alliance against the Saxons, Wendish destruction of Haithabu in 1066, etc.), the 1147 Wendish Crusade lead to the West Slav's Christianisation and integration into the Holy Roman Empire. In the consequence, influx of German merchants and settlers resulted in Germanisation - sometimes, e.g. in the case of the island of Rugen, within only 2-3 generations. In areas remote from the major trade routes, however, Slavonic language and traditions remained alive much longer. One of these areas, the lands south-east of Luneburg, where the flood plains of the Elbe inhibit east-west and north-south passage, became known as the "Hanoveranian Wendland". The last native Polabian language speaker died there in 1756, at the age of eighty-eight. Slavonic "Rundlings", circular-shaped villages around a central square, are still characteristic for the region.


Whatever meagre intra-regional infrastructure developed in the traditionally isolated area in the 19th and early 20th century was destroyed again in WWII, and not rebuilt as the Elbe was to form the border between the British and Russian occupation zones, and subsequently become part of the Iron Curtain.

Ruins of the Dömitz railway bridge, once part of the secondary railway line (Berlin->) Wittenberge - Luneburg - Buchholz (-> Bremen/ Bremerhaven)


OTOH - is there a better place for a nuclear waste dump than a sparsely populated, isolated corner, in desperate need for investment and employment opportunities? Even better - should something go wrong, prevailing west winds would carry any fallout towards the East, away from West German territory and into the GDR. So thought Lower Saxony PM Ernst Albrecht (CDU) in the late 1970s, preparing ambitious plans for a nuclear-industrial complex with fuel rod manufacture and recycling, and final storage of nuclear waste in the small Wendland village of Gorleben that sits on top of a salt dome.



Well, locals thought differently. In late March 1979, some 100 farmers loaded their tractors with manure and drove to Hanover in order to show the state government what they thought about the idea. While they were on their 7-days drive through the countryside, the Three-Mile-Island reactor in Harrisburg experienced a nuclear meltdown. The trek developed into a mass demonstration against nuclear energy, ultimately bringing nearly half a million people to the closing rally in Hannover. Consequently, Ernst Albrecht dropped the idea of establishing a nuclear-industrial complex, but the plans for the Gorleben deep final nuclear waste repository were maintained.



When exploratory drilling into the salt dome was to start in Spring 1980, several thousand protesters occupied the drilling site, constructed a protest camp, and declared its independence as "Republik Freies Wendland". The camp evolved into a pivotal point of anti-nuclear protest in northern Germany, and also became a test lab for grass-roots democracy and alternative ways of life (photo gallery-on picture 4 you can see one of my classmates from school). Especially on the weekends, thousands of supporters from Hamburg, Berlin and other urban-academic centres of the emerging green-alternative movement travelled there. After one month. the camp was evicted by the police, and drilling was taken up as planned.


As the nuclear industry wasn't prepared to wait until exploratory drilling for the final repository has been completed (Germany is obliged to take back nuclear waste from re-processing nuclear rods in the French La Hague plant), construction of a temporary repository commenced in Gorleben in early 1981. A first transport of light-to medium radioactive waste took place in 1984. The local anti-nuclear community, in the meantime reinforced by people arriving from Berlin, Hamburg and elsewhere, changed the strategy - (temporarily) blocking the transports should increase the financial and political cost to such an extent that the Gorleben nuclear repository ultimately becomes unfeasible. The initial campaign "Day X - Inhibit nuclear transports into the Wendland" in 1985 was forbidden by local authorities, as it was regarded as a call for illegal actions. However, Green party co-founder Joseph Beuys added hand-written comments and his signature, and the posters had to be left unchallenged as reproductions of pieces of art. This event put the yellow "X" into the catalogue of local protest signs.



When red-green took over in Lower Saxony in 1990, nuclear waste transports were temporarily stopped, until in 1995 Angela Merkel, at that time Federal Minister for the Environment, ordered the Lower Saxony government headed by Gerhard Schroder to take up transports again. Since then, there has been at least one transport every year, regularly met by blockades and fierce local resistance from the Wendland's specific coalition of local farmers and immigrated anti-nuclear activists. Andreas Graf von Bernstorff, largest local land-owner (sociologically a relict of the region's feudal past dating back to German colonialisation) has from the beginning been one of the most outspoken Gorleben opponents.


How that truly unusual coalition has shaped the Wendland over the last 35 years can be seen on the photo below (more photos)


Local musical heroes Madsen (younger cousins of the lead singers of one of my former bands) are an expression of the vivid local cultural scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PuziLb9CiU