Lichtenberg in Upper Franconia triggers mixed feelings among reporters. Many have spent a lot of their lives there because of a terrible and unsolved criminal case, and for some the town has temporarily become a kind of second place of work. And many have experienced Lichtenberg as a place where you can still experience silence.
The view from the city wall over the Franconian Forest Nature Park, the old fortress high above the Höllental, the stoic peace of this place on the former German-German border – that’s something you rarely see anymore. Purchasing infrastructure? There was a bakery there, which had to close a while ago, but now there is someone who wants to open the shop during the day.
The peace and quiet will be over when the Franconian Forest bridges are actually built there – as planned. The Hof district praises them as “unique in the world”; one of the two is said to be 1,030 meters long. You will be able to walk across the Selbitz valley at a height of up to 100 meters, and several hundred thousand tourists are expected to come every year. “We love our homeland and want to share this love, the beauty and uniqueness of our region with other people,” argues District Administrator Oliver Bär (CSU).
This Friday there is a district council meeting in Hof, it will once again be about the superlative bridges, as so often before. They have long since driven a wedge into the small town. Some say: We need them, they bring life to our town. Others say: The peace – that which defines our place – will be gone then.
It doesn’t take any imagination to imagine how fundamental the dissent is – no one needs to add fuel to the fire anymore. And so the Greens simply wrote a pleading letter to the district administrator shortly before Christmas, without foaming at the mouth. You ask quietly if he would like to put the matter on hold. The revised bridge plans consisted of 2,600 pages, and the whole thing consumed countless hours of meetings, not to mention the money.
The “courage” of the CSU district administrator, his “visionary ideas”, the “creative power” and the will to “make the impossible possible” were appreciated. We would simply like to ask that the matter of the tourism bridges be left alone – in view of all the crises, disasters and problems.
A rare tone in political debate. And an unusually beautiful one.