Name: Can the Green party hold on to its one stronghold in Germany? | DW News
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It's one of Germany's and Europe's richest regions, Baden Wurtenberg, home to delicious Spetzel and the Black Forest.

But most famous for its biggest export and driver of its economic the car.

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And perhaps that's why it's all the more surprising that the environmentalist Green Party has been so successful here.

It's where they place their first and only state premier.

And Winfrey Kretschman pulled off the unusual feat of staying in power for 15 years.

But right now, that curious but successful love story is not on solid ground.

As state elections approach on March 8, the Greens could lose their leadership for the first time in over a decade.

So what's happening in the Greens biggest stronghold?

And is it a sign that as Germany's political landscape further fragments, the party is struggling to stay relevant?

Let's start by taking a look at how the Greens are expected to perform in the state election.

After an unequivocal win gave them almost a third of the votes in 2021, the Greens have fallen behind the conservative CDU and are polling around 27%.

Latest polls show the CDU is projected to steal the state leadership from the Greens and win with 28% of the vote.

Shaking up the forecast is the far right AfD.

It's projected to come in third with around 18% of the votes.

The party has never been so strong in Baden Wurtenberg and is set to gain the most since the last election in 2021.

With these numbers in mind, I headed to an event on the Green Party's campaign trail in Bad Wittenberg.

This is Biberach, a major industrial town a couple of hours away from Stuttgart, the state's capital.

And it's mostly pensioners who are lined up outside the venue at 10am on a Wednesday morning, waiting to be let in to hear from Cem Ozdemir, the Green candidate running for state premier.

There's an upbeat mood inside the hall, But some are more disillusioned with the party.

The event still pulled a big audience because it features Green royalty Franziska Pratna, the party's current Germany wide co leader, Joschka Fischer, the Green's veteran foreign minister during the party's first stint in the federal government at the end of the 1990s, and

Rikada Lange, in her early 30s and already a party veteran and social media star.

Many are here to listen to this man, Winfried Bretchman, the politician who steered the Green Party in Baden Wurtenberg.

Through 15 years in government, he summed up what he considers his recipe for that success.

Sets Unstadt auf ein Polarisieren disorder auf Deskonstruktive und Economy und Ecologie, tradition und innovation.

77 year old Kretschmann is so well loved in the state and beyond that many attribute much of the Green's success here to him.

His pragmatic approach that balanced economic interests and climate protection often differed from the more left leaning policies of the Greens at the federal level.

But it won him support in a state that had been traditionally dominated by the conservative parties.

He was, so to say, positioning himself in the middle.

And he was, so to say, a key for the success.

He was quite popular even among the Christian Democrats, among the bourgeois electorate.

Hechmann is now set to retire and his shoes will be hard to fill.

The man taking on that task is the main act today in Biberach.

Born in Walden Wurttenberg to Turkish parents, he has left the Green Party at national level, been a member of the European Parliament as well as a minister in the last federal government.

People here know very well who he is today.

He's here to explain his vision for the future.

Has Kretzschmann's pragmatic approach to politics and is also popular with voters.

But the days of record wins for the party in Baden Wurtenberg appear to be over for many Greens supporters here.

There are some problems with the party that one single figure can't fix.

At the national level, the Greens have been stagnating and the party has regularly come under fire, especially during its last five years in government until 2025.

Some unpopular policies soured their reputation with voters.

For example, some of the energy policies they pushed in the wake of rising prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

You have to recall that the Germans have the second highest energy prices in Europe.

Only the Danes they pay higher prices and this is of course attributed to the Green politics.

So when the Greens in general have a downward trend, this will also hit Greens, however on a higher level.

The economy in Baden Wittenberg has become a top concern for voters.

The state's car centered economy is in crisis.

Major car manufacturers like Mercedes and Porsche, or suppliers like Bosch have announced tens of thousands of job cuts by 2030.

A structural shift towards electric vehicles and competition from China.

High energy and production costs and the lack of innovation have all fueled the crisis.

Insolvency proceedings rose for a second year and unemployment well below the national average increase is growing at an increasing rate.

Tamara Hubner from the trade union Ige Metal in the state capital Stuttgart, told me job security concerns are rising.

She says the Green led state government has tried to keep up with structural changes, but

Dissatisfaction with the ruling party often follows economic woes, and

you can see how it could be easy to blame Green state leadership for a crisis in the carbon intensive car industry.

I wanted to ask candidate Cem Oetzemier, who he thinks is responsible for the economic downturn.

I caught up with him in Stuttgart during a short break between campaign events.

We're an export state number one in Germany.

We produce excellent products that we sell to the whole world.

China's role that is now a strong competitor.

Also playing sometimes with unfair methods.

Cheap Russian gas which is not available anymore.

And let me remind you it was not the Green Party who fought that if you're nice to Mr.

We always warned that dictators do not have good intentions.

Vis a vis your opinion with the vis the Greens look likely to stay in government whether they pull off a win or not, but

there's a good chance that they'll be relegated to the position of minority coalition partner while their pragmatic approach is no longer enough to win over a large majority.

And some of their core environmental values are becoming more of a hindrance than a help when it comes to catching votes.

What might end up saving them from electoral disaster in Baden Wurttemberg, at least, is the popularity of their candidate Cem Uztemir SA.