In their historic stronghold of Baden-Württemberg, the German Greens are being challenged by the CDU.

On the former Pershing missile site in Mutlangen, Baden-Württemberg, vast fields of solar panels now stretch in neat rows, with remnants of concrete showing through beneath closely mown grass.

“Sun rather than missiles — can you imagine a better symbol for the German Greens”

Le Monde.fr

Volker Nick, 70, a leading figure of the protest movement against what were then called the "nuclear rockets," points to the spot and says, "There was one here."

Le Monde.fr

The image of solar panels replacing missiles serves as a symbolic contrast in a region shaped by anti-nuclear activism.

Mutlangen was where, in the last hours of the Cold War, the American army erected 36 of the 108 nuclear missiles deployed in Germany, aimed at the sky.

The heath became the scene of nonstop demonstrations that drew up to 30,000 people from across the country to form a human chain to block American convoys, with protesters chanting "Better to be red than dead."

Le Monde.fr

That anti-nuclear movement helped give rise to the German Green Party, founded in 1980 in Baden-Württemberg.

The region now faces a high-stakes regional election on Sunday, March 8, in which the Greens are being challenged on their own turf by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Baden-Württemberg, a Land on the French border, remains tied to the automotive industry that Germans nickname "AutoLand."

“Sun rather than missiles — can you imagine a better symbol for the German Greens”

Le Monde.fr

It is the only one of Germany's 16 Länder to be governed by a Green, Winfried Kretschmann, who has been elected continuously since 2011 and is retiring this year.

The article attributes his longevity to a centrist stance—conservative on immigration and economically liberal—that aligns with the region's industrial character, a far cry from the long-haired pacifist activists of the 1980s.