A free flat for a fortnight: the German city offering perks to fight depopulation

If you're considering moving to a German ex-communist model city that is trying to lure new residents with a range of perks, including free accommodation and rounds of drinks with locals, take it from Tom Hanks: Eisenhüttenstadt has many charms.
While filming outside Berlin in 2011, the Hollywood actor and history buff took a mini field trip 60 miles east to what he called Iron Hut City and was instantly smitten. 'An amazing architectural place,' he said, pronouncing it 'fascinating'. He returned sprinkling stardust again three years later, even acquiring a vintage Trabant car he shipped back to Los Angeles. 'People still live there – it's actually a gorgeous place,' Hanks said.
People do still live in Eisenhüttenstadt, perhaps better translated as Ironworks City – just not enough, say the city's administrators. The population is now less than half the 53,000 it counted before the fall of the Berlin Wall. An early 2000s guidebook described it as a Truman Show version of the GDR.
But just as residents battled successfully after reunification to retain the giant steel plant the city was built around after the second world war, Eisenhüttenstadt is not going to wither and die of depopulation without a fight.
'Many people left us looking for work, especially the young,' mayor Frank Balzer said. 'We're at a point where we're trying to draw new people to secure the future of our companies and the attractiveness of the city.'
The new Probewohnen programme will allow a handful of newcomers or returnees to try out living and working in Eisenhüttenstadt as it celebrates its 75th anniversary. It is modelled on similar schemes that have been successful in other shrinking east German communities and could be expanded if it bears fruit.
Those chosen and their families will be given a furnished flat in the city centre for two weeks in September, opportunities to sit in with potential employers, and a recreation package including meet-and-greet Stammtisch evenings in a local pub as well as hiking excursions in the surrounding canal-laced forested region on the Polish border.
Julia Basan, the municipal economic development officer spearheading the campaign, said her phone has been ringing non-stop since she announced it last month, with 500 people already submitting their requests ahead of a 5 July deadline.
'I even got an application in Pashto,' Basan said, adding that an American family of seven had also thrown their hat in the ring. She declined to identify the applicants on data protection grounds.
Balzer said 'Germans and Europeans' with the right paperwork, language skills and job qualifications would have the best shot due to labour laws but no serious contender would be rejected out of hand.
Both Balzer and Basan's families have roots in Eisenhüttenstadt stretching back to its beginnings as Stalinstadt (Stalin City) from 1953-61.
It was the first city to be founded – in East or West Germany – after the Nazi period, and was born of a socialist vision of how work and family life could be blended in the right surroundings for the good of all.
Axel Drieschner, curator at the city's Utopia and Everyday Life museum, said repeated attempts to diversify away from steel production had largely failed, meaning the erstwhile Soviet-style city risked becoming a ghost town if the plant closed.
Eisenhüttenstadt has 'pioneer spirit in its genes – people were brought here to roll up their sleeves and build something new,' he said. 'The big question is, can we build on that tradition for the future with a positive vision. Perhaps with new pioneers.'
Most of the cheaper Plattenbauten, or prefab housing blocks, on the city's fringes were demolished as their occupants died off or left town. But the elegant 1950s-era neoclassical buildings Hanks raved about, with their leafy inner courtyards decked out with playgrounds, have been handsomely refurbished.
From nearly any vantage point in the city, the chimneys of the steel mill puffing out white smoke can be seen down the planners' clear street axes – a constant reminder of the enduring dependence on one sector.
After communism, the plant was privatised and downsized, with staff counts plunging from 11,000 people to about 2,500 employees today.
Multinational giant ArcelorMittal is now overseeing a transition to 'green' steel with a smaller carbon footprint – one more bid for Eisenhüttenstadt to reinvent itself for a new century.
Asked about his fears around Donald Trump's swingeing steel import tariffs, Balzer, a Social Democrat, said most of what was produced locally went to eastern Europe or stayed in Germany. 'But our parent company could be badly affected,' he added.
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Daniel Kubiak, a scholar at Berlin's Humboldt University's Institute for Empirical Integration and Migration Research, said introductory schemes like the one in Eisenhüttenstadt offer a chance to break down stubborn prejudices.
'Many eastern German cities need these campaigns because despite all the problems, the image is usually worse than the reality,' he said.
Kubiak said Eisenhüttenstadt's structural challenges were hardly unique, comparing them with those in the north-east of England, southern Italy and eastern Poland. But he said evolving ways of working offered an opportunity for a new generation of risk takers.
'In an age of working from home, the expansion of broadband internet and dynamic career paths, this (programme) could be attractive to young people who are so badly needed in east German cities. But the longtime residents have to do their part too' in making people feel welcome, he said.
Precariousness and a pervasive sense among older residents that the town's best days are behind it have given rise to strong support for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, which won nearly 40% of local votes in the February general election.
When the Guardian visited, a small demonstration under an AfD banner proceeded down the linden-lined high street, once named Lenin Avenue, with an elderly organiser denouncing the 'war mongers' behind the German government's arms shipments to Ukraine.
Enrico Hartrampf of GeWi property management, which runs the bulk of local housing stock, said most of the town's older residents had never lived anywhere else.
'It means it can be hard for them to see how good we have it here,' he said. 'Tell anyone in Berlin we pay an average of €6.50 per square metre in rent and see what they say.'
In a vicious circle, however, the AfD profits from fears of decay while creating an image problem for Eisenhüttenstadt, turning off some highly qualified potential applicants the city says it craves.
A report by a Berlin public broadcaster about the Probewohnen programme last month drew dozens of comments on social media saying the anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin party's firm foothold in town would put them off.
Refugees like 19-year-old Shakib from Herat in western Afghanistan have helped staunch depopulation in Eisenhüttenstadt, particularly since the 2015 influx under former chancellor Angela Merkel that brought him to Germany. But they have not always received a warm welcome.
'There are a lot of opportunities and jobs and no crime – but unfortunately also a lot of racism here in the east, from the old and the young,' said Shakib, who is training as a paramedic in the staff-starved healthcare industry.
Local elections are scheduled for 28 September, just after the Probewohnen period, and polls indicate the AfD could come out on top.
However, many residents say that while there are plenty of disgruntled voters, they do not set the tone in town, which they describe as friendly, open and even optimistic.
'I studied in Berlin and Potsdam and decided to come back,' said teacher Josephine Geller, 30, adding she had seen a marked improvement in the town's attractiveness for educated women like her over the last decade. 'They've renovated a lot and it's a great place to live with children – not too big and not too small. You can reach everything on a bike and we love the lakes.'
Sarah Kuhnke, 27, who trains nurses, said she also saw a bright future for Eisenhüttenstadt.
'There might not be a lot of cafes and bars but people from all over come to see our remarkable architecture and natural beauty,' she said. 'It's worth it to try living here.'

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