For One Far-Right Politician, Forgetting Germany’s Past Just Got Harder<br />For Mr. Ruch and his fellow artists, the answer is clear: People like Mr. Höcke deserve “not one millimeter.”<br />“He broke the mother of all taboos, he challenged the founding narrative of modern Germany<br />and he got away with it,” said Mr. Ruch, who was born in Dresden and now lives in Berlin.<br />“We wanted to remind Mr. Höcke that he can turn German history however much he likes, it doesn’t change,” said Philipp Ruch, co-founder<br />of a Berlin-based artist collective known as the Center for Political Beauty and, at least on paper, Mr. Höcke’s new neighbor.<br />Mr. Höcke, a history teacher turned local chief of the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has called the village his “refuge” and “locus of inspiration.”<br />But behind its idyllic facade, Bornhagen reflects the new, confusing reality of a Germany where polite political consensus and demographic homogeneity are breaking down, and where the intimate and ideological live side by side.<br />BORNHAGEN, Germany — No one in the village saw it coming, least of all Björn Höcke, a quiet<br />and well-liked local father of four who also happens to be Germany’s most notorious far-right politician.<br />Overnight, said Silvia Rinke, who has voted for the left-leaning Greens all her life, “we have become the Nazi village.”<br />Ms. Rinke, who offers guided tours in medieval garb, says tourists are asking less about the region’s rich history, and more about Mr. Höcke.
