Tram trauma takes on a Teutonic twist

Edinburgh? No. Stuttgart, Germany.

Stuttgart, population 600,000, is the capital of Baden-Württemberg, one of the 16 states of Germany. Historically, it’s also the gateway to Swabia, a swathe of southern Germany with a richly distinctive culture, history, and dialect.

Swabians are known as the Scots of Germany. “Its people have a reputation for being thrifty and house-proud. The rest of Germany cherishes the cliché that Swabians love to tinker and invent,” notes one travel website.

Famous for their craftiness, they traditionally suffered a lot of teasing about stinginess, as in a nonsense song about the Swabian who tied his goat to the back of a train, rather than buy it a ticket.

So there was a gruesome irony on a visit to the area to discover that the talk of local politics is a multi-billion euro transport scheme that has infuriated locals. The Stuttgart 21 project has lead to a popular revolt which has helped the Green Party into power in the regional parliament.

Stuttgart’s outrage hasn’t been limited to black jokes about the cost; major protests there have helped coin a new word, Wutburger, for a new breed of alienated, educated, and decidedly angry Germans.

Stuttgart is headquarters of manufacturers like Bosch, Porsche and Mercedes – the two car companies have major museums at their factories – bywords for efficiency and inventiveness in German engineering. But it’s currently better known for the deeply controversial railway and urban redevelopment project, Stuttgart 21, centred on its railway station.

There were hardly words glowing enough to describe Stuttgart 21’s ambitions. A rail terminus would convert to a through station, making the city a key hub on a high-speed railway corridor stretching from Paris to Budapest – with Stuttgart “the new heart of Europe”, a claim opponents say is laughable. The network would include a high-speed rail link to its airport and and a nearby city, Ulm.

And now the catch. First conceived in 1988, Stuttgart 21 is not scheduled for completion until 2026. The original cost of the urban works was 2.5 billion euros; it now looks set to double. Reports now suggest that as far back as 2005, insiders at Deutsche Bahn, the German national railway company, already knew costs were far above public estimates. But guess what? Cancelling it would allegedly cost the state government as much as 1.5 billion euros.

When thrifty folks go on a splurge for a project with no discernable benefits and a skyrocketing price with a series of delays, perhaps they really let their hair down, but there’s one major difference from Edinburgh. It’s a welcome one for those of us who’d like to see every city councillor who’s endorsed the trams project turfed out of office.

Moves to demolish parts of the old station, and down trees, have provoked a series of passionate demonstrations

In June protests sadly turned violent, when hundreds of demonstators tore down a 200 metre fence and nine policemen were injured. But “Wutburger” protests have spread elsewhere, to other causes.

In March, anger on the issue saw voter elected the Greens to head a state government for the first time in Germany; shortly afterwards construction was put temporarily on hold. In November the whole scheme is to be put to a public vote in the state. A one-third no vote of eligible voters would stop it. Officials, not surprisingly, say the project is still on track.

Turning angry over the trams fiasco has always had a weakness – you can’t get over the feeling that there are better and more important things to discuss, that the whole issue is hopelessly parochial and moral indignation is better directed at famine victims or unemployment. No longer. This could be the start of an international coalition against transport incompetence.

We are all Wutburgers now.