Holiday on Rügen: “No one here allows elitist Western newspapers to ascribe any scruples to them.”

Now even Judith Rakers , the former Tagesschau anchor, has had to defend the east. She moved from near Hamburg to Rügen a few weeks ago and regularly updates her fans on social media about the progress of her house construction, as well as about her chickens, cats, and tomatoes. In an interview with Die Welt, she recounted how she "fell instantly in love" on her first visit to the island in 2010. Endless stubble fields, "seemingly stretching to the horizon," the red of the poppies, the blue of the cornflowers, the special light, the fertile soil. The island evokes a great many emotions in her, Rakers said.

The Welt author asked whether it wasn't a cause for concern that the AfD received by far the most votes in her future constituency, with 37.3 percent. Rakers replied that the majority of voters had opted for "democratic-minded parties." Many people here were dissatisfied with current politics and expressed this through their voting behavior, despite warnings about right-wing extremist tendencies. She was curious to see what her experiences would be in the future.

Nord Stream, wind farms, severed deep-sea cables

An answer so calm, as if Rakers were still in front of the camera at 8 p.m., a former news anchor who sounds like a diplomat. In a summer that began with a media debate about whether booking numbers would now decline in the federal states where the AfD had become the strongest force in the federal election. Vacation among Nazis? Can, may, should one still spend one's vacation in the East?

One could ask this question not only on Rügen, but also in the Thuringian Forest, the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, or the Harz Mountains. The answer would probably be similar everywhere: the biggest concern among vacationers is not the AfD, but the bad weather. Although on Rügen, Rakers' new home, you don't even notice much of that. The sun shines here more often than anywhere else. The Baltic Sea wind blows away the clouds. On some days, a stillness hangs over the sea like the Dead Sea. And when you hike over the chalk cliffs through the beech forests like Caspar David Friedrich once did, you understand why the island is such a place of longing for many. Then and now.

There seems to be no better place to forget the complicated political situation than on Rügen, yet nowhere is it more present than here. This is where the boat from which the Nord Stream pipeline was blown up docked. This is where the LNG terminal is raising residents' protests . This is where gigantic wind farms rise from the sea, where deep-sea cables are severed, and where submarines for Israel are tested. This is where the Russian oil tanker that floated unmanned off the coast in January of this year lies in the harbor.

The tanker drifted directly toward Dranske with 100,000 tons of crude oil on board, says Andreas Heinemann. It was a very close call. "If it had run aground, you could have shut everything down here for 20 years." Heinemann, in his mid-50s, wearing shorts and a polo shirt, sits in his office at Cape Arkona. A sticker reading "Hello Vorpommern" is stuck to his cell phone, and a sign on the door reads "Hang up first, then say asshole." Images from a 360-degree webcam glide past on the screens: cliffs, fields, the lighthouses, and the sea, tinged turquoise blue by the broken chalk.

Heinemann has headed the Kap Arkona Tourism Company since 2019 and the Rügen Tourism Association for a year. He grew up on the island; his father, Ernst Heinemann, a former East German Army officer, served as mayor of Putgarten for many years after reunification, protecting the village from investors who wanted to replace the small thatched houses with large hotels and developing his own tourism concept.

Head of the Tourism Association: “Rügen is always on the go”

He had the village street paved with Portuguese stone, blocked off all through traffic, and built a large parking lot at the village entrance, from which you can take a small electric tram to the three lighthouses on the cape and further to Vitt, the old fishing village. In between, there are restaurants, shops, a stage in the village and one on the cape where bands perform or plays are performed. The beaches are wild, with no beach chairs or fish sandwiches for sale. On calm days, you feel like you're completely alone on the island.

Sometimes he's no longer aware of "what a treasure we have here," says Andreas Heinemann. But recently, he took a ride on the Rasender Roland, the island railway, and heard two women raving about Rügen. At that moment, he suddenly saw his island with different eyes and remembered his time as a tour guide. "Rügen was in every guidebook," he says. "Rügen is always a hit." This year, too. "Everything's normal, everything's as usual."

He considers the debates about vacations in the "blue states" to be "unreflective" and annoys him, even personally. "They vilify us, those who didn't vote for the party, along with them," he says. He knows AfD voters, some of whom openly refer to the Third Reich. But most aren't right-wing radicals, but protest voters who don't even know what the party's platform says. Otherwise, they wouldn't vote for the party.

Most of the vacationers are from the East, where the election results weren't much different, and have been coming here for years or even decades. From one AfD state to the next, so to speak. "No one here lets elitist Western newspapers ascribe any scruples to them," says Heinemann. "Vacations on Rügen are a given for our vacationers."

Statistics from the tourism association confirm this: Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is one of the most popular holiday destinations in Germany. In addition to Brandenburgers, Berliners, and Saxons, most holidaymakers come from North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, but Danes, Swiss, and Dutch also vacation in northeastern Germany.

Labor shortage on Rügen: Kitchens close at 8 p.m.

The islands are particularly popular. Rügen ranks first, Usedom second, and Heringsdorf leads the way in terms of beach resorts, followed by Binz, Kühlungsborn, and Warnemünde. Andreas Heinemann says that there are days when 1,200 to 1,500 cars are parked in the parking lot here. Hotels, guesthouses, and vacation rentals are also having no problems. "Good bookings, lots of day tourists."

And yet there are differences, things that are different from other summers. The reasons for this, however, lie less in the political than in the economic situation in the country: labor shortages, rising food costs, energy costs, and the minimum wage. Restaurants that were open all summer a few years ago are suddenly closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Anyone who tries to reserve a table for Sunday lunchtime for that evening is told there won't be any available until Thursday. Anyone who wants to eat herring or schnitzel after 8 p.m. is greeted by the waitress shouting, "Our kitchen is closing." It's best to plan your evenings before you go on vacation. Or do your own shopping at the Netto discount store. That seems to be the new vacation trend anyway: staying in your room in the evening, playing games, streaming movies.

Perhaps this also explains why so many seats remain empty at the Ostseekino cinema on the Wittow peninsula this year. Rainer Buchholz from Berlin-Friedrichshagen runs the tent cinema in the old estate park of Kuhle near Dranske. Here, you can drink beer or wine under tall trees, eat vegetable curry or popcorn, play table tennis, or sit around the campfire. Above all, though, you can watch films, current hits of the season and DEFA classics: "The Legend of Paul and Paula," "Hot Summer," "Island of Swans," "The Journey to Sundevit," and "Whispering and Screaming."

A place reminiscent of 90s Berlin, perfect after a day at the beach. But even at the summer festival at the end of July, where various bands performed and DJs played, the doorman said shortly before midnight that a hundred more people wouldn't have been bad.

After sunset, the streets are empty; the island seems deserted. At the end of July, Zig Zag, a Berlin band that won a gold record with their World Cup anthem "Wir bringen den Cup nach Haus" (We'll Bring the Cup Home), will perform in the Piergarten in Sassnitz. The stage is set up right by the harbor. "I Can't Get No" by the Stones booms across the sea. It is a mild evening. The sea shines golden, the submarine museum next to the pier has already closed, and on the Ferris wheel - seven euros per ride - only one gondola is occupied. One of the musicians calls out: "This is the St. Tropez of Rügen, the Las Vegas of the Baltic Sea!" The people on the wooden benches laugh, tap their feet to the music; no one answers the invitation to dance. It's like a party that hasn't really started yet.

Sassnitz is an old spa town with white villas and East German-era residential areas, nestled between the chalk cliffs of Jasmund National Park and the Neu-Mukran harbor. It's a place that has been teetering on the brink of financial collapse for years. Europe's longest pier was damaged in a storm, the lighthouse is closed, the old cinema is a ruin, shops stand empty, and the ferry service to Trelleborg has been discontinued.

Judith Rakers: Already changing the image of the East

Here, too, one is reminded of Berlin in the 1990s, those years of upheaval between uncertainty and new beginnings. The old pier is currently being repaired with donations, and the Rügen Hotel, built by a Swedish company in 1968, has been renovated and reopened for the start of the holiday season. Downstairs, you can eat fried chicken in the Broiler Bar, and upstairs, you can gaze far out over the sea in the Peak Restaurant. Hidden behind the hotel is a memorial stone commemorating Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's return to Russia from exile via Sassnitz in 1917 "to lead the Great Socialist October Revolution."

But then last weekend, the Sail GP took place in Sassnitz, an international sailing race featuring the world's fastest catamarans, which is usually held in cities like Dubai, Sydney, San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, or New York City. Sponsors include actors Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway, as well as Formula 1 driver Sebastian Vettel.

Here, too, it all began with a vacation on Rügen. The managing director of Team Germany visited the island for the first time in the fall of 2023 and was so impressed by the picturesque scenery and favorable wind conditions that he called the harbor in Sassnitz. The sailing race was a success, with 13,000 tickets sold, hotels booked out, and ZDF broadcasting it live. The date for next summer has already been set.

Andreas Heinemann says the Sail GP could change the island, and he seems as calm as many locals when they talk about summer on Rügen, those weeks that sweep across the land like a storm. You just have to somehow hold out until the tourists leave, the wind dies down, and what is probably the most beautiful, but also most difficult, time on the island begins.

One will still be here: Judith Rakers, the news anchor who has already changed the image of Rügen, of the East. In an interview with Die Welt, she said that journalists asked her why she was moving to Rügen and not to Mallorca "with this election result." Rakers said she could only shake her head.