Görlitz's stardom

As residents increasingly turn their backs on the sleepy city of Görlitz on Germany's easternmost border, Hollywood is moving in.

Drawn to the former trade hub's centuries-old homes and cobblestone streets which once fostered a multiethnic, polyglot European culture destroyed by Hitler's Germany in the 1930s - movie producers have found the perfect setting for several overseas blockbusters.

Monuments Men and Inglorious Basterds were shot here and most recently, an unused department store was transformed into the majestic Grand Budapest Hotel for director Wes Anderson's Oscar-winning film.

The attention has galvanized residents' hopes of an economic revival in their dwindling city, where 15-percent unemployment has young people leaving in droves.

Counter-productive comments

Many view their prospects of success as hinging on the popularity of the department store from Grand Budapest Hotel and the money brought in by the building's owner, Winfried Stöcker, a wealthy entrepreneur who founded a biosciences company based in Lübeck called Euroimmun AG. Stöcker purchased the building from a bankruptcy court two years ago with grand plans to redevelop it into a regional shopping hub once again.

But the entrepreneur's views on immigration have put off some locals who see them as xenophobic and worry that Stöcker's prominence could tarnish the city's image and undermine efforts to attract tourists and investors.

In one interview with the Sächsische Zeitung newspaper late last year, Stöcker denounced what he described as abuse of Germany's generosity and willingness to shelter refugees from wars in the Middle East and Africa.

"Twenty years ago, [the blacks] in Rwanda were slaughtering each other by the thousands. Should we have let all of them come here instead?" the paper quoted Stöcker as saying.

New market opportunity

Stöcker boasts a heritage tie to the city - he and his family fled to West Germany from Görlitz in 1960, before the East and West were divided. With the department store, Stöcker aims to serve what he says is an untapped market for luxury goods in the Polish-Czech-German border region.

“The people in Poland and Czech Republic are our neighbors and our friends,” Stöcker said in an interview with DW. “I want this department store to serve as a place where people from the region can connect, and also a place for people to shop.”

Görlitz straddles the Neisse River, and with its other half - the Polish city of Zgorzelec just across the river - served as a regional hub for commerce between Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany until the 1930s.

Today, a stroll through the city gives the impression of being on a film set. Nearly 40 percent of the city's buildings are empty. The local tourism office has affectionately adopted the nickname, "Görliwood."

Though spared by Allied bombers in World War II, Görlitz's buildings crumbled under Communism and in post-reunification years, industry here collapsed and unemployment skyrocketed.

The German government has spent billions of euros sprucing up the city's 16th century buildings and those in outlying areas to their pre-war glory, hoping to give the local economy a much-needed shot in the arm.

And though the subsidies have not paid off in terms of job creation, they have attracted Hollywood. And when asked what the city needs to get back on its feet, locals are convinced that reopening the main department store is the key to an economic revival.

Call it an "if you build it, they will come" mentality.

“My greatest wish is for the department store to reopen,” said Barbara Frühauf, who owns the Frühhauf butcher shop on Damienplatz, next door to the department store. “We are here in the middle of a city. When the store is closed, the city loses its pulse.”

'Grand Budapest Hotel' founded by German-Jewish merchants

The gigantic, Art Nouveau department store was built to resemble another shopping center that once stood in Berlin. The Görlitz iteration was founded by German-Jewish merchants in 1913 and integrated into the Karstadt department store chain in the 1920s.

During the Nazis' "aryanization" program of Jewish-owned commerce, Karstadt's German-Jewish owners, employees and management were all removed. The store reopened after the war, toddled along during communism in East Germany before closing in 2008.

Global politics have affected life in sleepy Görlitz for decades and, it seems, continue to polarize the 55,000-strong city today.

Since so many buildings in Görlitz are empty, the federal government asked the city to accept 250 refugees from Libya and Syria. Stöcker, among others, has lashed out at those plans.

The entrepreneur's statements, at times racially charged, have drawn the ire of German media, regional politicians and even the evangelical church. But elsewhere, they have garnered support.

A regional branch of Germany's far-right National Democratic Party, widely regarded as being made up of neo-Nazis, named Stöcker its "Entrepreneur of the Year" after his interview with the Sächsische Zeitung newspaper.

Shortly thereafter, Stöcker was sued by the Central Committee of the African Community in Germany.

"We filed charges against Mr. Stöcker because he defamed an entire group of people," said Muktar Kamara, who heads the committee. "He also said that we are beggars. We are not beggars. We work and pay taxes like everyone else. He has insulted the entire continent of Africa."

Kamara said his group has contacted African diplomatic missions in Berlin and is working with them to have Stöcker declared persona non grata in several African nations. Meanwhile, the University of Lübeck, where Stöcker holds an honorary title, has condemned his views and has asked him to return the honorary degree.

Stöcker said he wasn't bothered by the controversy some of his utterances have unleashed and vowed to move ahead with plans to open his department store by 2016.

Thomas Baum, a Social Democrat in the Saxony regional government, worries the negative attention that Stöcker has drawn to Görlitz could scare off international investment that the regional desperately needs.

But Baum also said such anti-immigrant views were not uncommon in the region.

"It's extremely sad to see how being anti-foreigner has become a mainstream view in Saxony," Baum said. "It's an incorrect view, but one that has prevailed for years in this region."