How decades of debate over Stuttgart’s train station boosted local democracy
The dispute over Stuttgart’s new main railway station has raged for decades. Over the past 15 years, politicians in the German state of Baden-Württemberg have drawn lessons from the saga and, with Swiss support, bolstered municipal democracy.
Every Monday evening, Stuttgart’s city centre fills with noise as protesters blow whistles, beat drums and shake rattles. This weekly racket has been going on for nearly 800 weeks.
The ongoing resistance to the Stuttgart 21 project is the longest-running wave of protests Europe has ever seen. The project involves building an underground through-station to replace the old terminus in the heart of this city in southern Germany.
Over 30 years in the planning
“This is absolute nonsense of the highest order,” says Angelika Linckh, a retired gynaecologist who became politically active thanks to the dispute over the station. “I used to have a lot of confidence in politics, but not anymore.”
Linckh is leading a protest march towards the massive construction site of the new railway station together with her fellow campaigner, Tom Adler, a long-time local politician from the socialist party Die Linke.
As roughly 1,000 protestors stay above ground on their 800-metre march, chanting slogans and demanding the old terminus be preserved, the vast underground platforms are nearly complete. But here’s the catch: even in its 32nd year of planning and 16th year of construction, no opening date has been set yet for the CHF10 billion ($12.67 billion) project.
“Germany’s future viability will be decided by Stuttgart 21,” said then-Chancellor Angela Merkel at the start of construction in February 2010. In 2026, the daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote: “If the former chancellor was right, we should be concerned.”
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One man who has literally stayed “on top” throughout all these years of construction and protest is Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, who lives high above Stuttgart’s city centre in the Villa Reitzenstein. The Green Party politician rose to power in Germany’s third-largest state 15 years ago largely because of the Stuttgart 21 controversy. The 77-year-old former biology teacher chose not to run again in this March’s snap elections after serving three terms in office.
Kretschmann will be succeeded by Cem Özdemir, who is also a member of the Green Party and former German agriculture minister. Under him, the “politics of being heard” initiated by Kretschmann looks set to continue, at least if the people of Baden-Württemberg have their way. According to a study by the University of HohenheimExternal link, 97% hope the “politics of being heard” will be maintained.
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Growing satisfaction with democracy in Baden-Württemberg
“It’s a surprising result,” says communications expert Frank Brettschneider. “It is rare for a political measure to be evaluated so positively and across party lines.” According to Brettschneider’s analysis of the University of Hohenheim’s study, Kretschmann’s approach has helped push the state residents’ trust in democracy ten percentage points above the national average (63% compared to 53%).
Two other government offices responsible for implementing the “politics of being heard” in Baden-Württemberg are located near the minister-president’s office: the staff section and the Citizen Participation Service Centre.
“Welcome to Clay House – American generals were stationed here after the Second World War and until 2011,” says Barbara Bosch by way of greeting.
As state councillor for civil society and civil participation, the 68-year-old non-partisan former mayor of the city of Reutlingen has served as Baden-Württemberg’s “democracy minister” for five years.
“I represent civil society at the cabinet table,” says Bosch. She is also the head of the Democracy Department, the staff section for citizen participation which, among other things, prepares relevant legislative reforms. “Over the years, we have repeatedly consulted and drawn inspiration from our partners in Switzerland,” she adds.
At the heart of Baden-Württemberg’s democracy-focused Switzerland strategyExternal link is cooperation with the neighbouring Swiss canton of Aargau.
New participation laws follow cooperation with Switzerland
As a result of Baden-Württemberg’s cooperation with Switzerland, the state expanded direct democratic rights for citizens. Shortly after he was elected in spring 2011 – a win that ended 58 years of conservative dominance by the Christian Democrats – Kretschmann initiated a referendum on Stuttgart 21.
Almost 59% of voters went against the minister-president’s recommendation and backed the continuation of the railway project. Kretschmann, who will step down in May, accepted the result and pushed for new forms of citizen participation across the state, “to make sure Stuttgart 21 will not happen again.”
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What it takes for a referendum to be fair
In the last few years, Baden-Württemberg has adopted numerous new participation laws, allowing the state and its more than 1,000 communities to convene so-called citizen councils. In these assemblies, randomly selected residents who represent the wider population examine complex and controversial issues such as infrastructure, health care and education.
“This way, they can contribute to solutions that can win majority support,” says lawyer Ulrich Arndt.
For the past four years, Arndt has headed the Citizen Participation Service Centre, another department of the “politics of being heard”. “We advise and support political bodies and public administrations and provide them with moderators and experts at our expense.” Arndt believes that Baden-Württemberg is now inspiring its Swiss cooperation partners with this “dialogue infrastructure”. In 2023, canton Aargau convened a citizen council made up of 22 randomly selected residents, who discussed an upcoming referendum and explained the issue to the wider public.
But despite the government-promoted mix of dialogue-based and direct democratic forms of citizen participation, surprisingly little has changed in Baden-Württemberg’s regional politics. State-level referendums remain rare, and citizens’ initiatives often fail due to high signature thresholds. Brettschneider attributes this largely to the continuing strength of parliamentarism and political parties.
Rottweil – a local success story
The situation is different in the state’s 1,101 communities. “A combination of citizen participation and final decision-making power through referendums helps to get even difficult proposals adopted,” says Ralph Bross, who served for 13 years as mayor of Rottweil, a city 100km south of Stuttgart. “With the support of the state councillor of civil society and the Citizen Participation Service, we managed to secure a majority for a complex and sensitive proposal to build a large prison in Rottweil.” Bross now heads the Baden-Württemberg Association of Cities, which comprises 197 municipalities.
For years, he intensively discussed the purpose, location and design of the new prison with Rottweil’s residents. In the end, nearly 60% voted favourably in a referendum on the facility, which will house more than 500 inmates.
From his office in Stuttgart, Bross has a direct view of the construction of the railway station. “We have learnt a lot from this saga of suffering,” says the Social Democrat. Bross looks forward to the day when Stuttgart 21, with its new underground station and 56 kilometres of access tunnels, is completed and the Monday-night racket of the protestors is a thing of the past.
Edited by Mark Livingston/bvw. Adapted from German by Billi Bierling/gw
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