Deep in the woods that inspired the Brothers Grimm, past the tower from which Rapunzel threw down her hair and the castle in which Sleeping Beauty slumbered, lies a construction site that the far right has declared a crime against national soil and identity.

In this quiet corner of Germany’s “fairytale forest”, workers are clearing land and building access roads to erect 18 wind turbines.

The trucks rumbling through Reinhardswald have won the cautious backing of conservation groups, who consider the clean energy the turbines will generate a worthy trade-off for the 0.07% of forest they will physically occupy. But the project has divided local people and become a flashpoint for the far right, whose opposition to wind turbines has grown increasingly venomous in recent years.

At an Alternative für Deutschland conference in January, just weeks before the party doubled its vote share to become the second-biggest force in parliament, its co-leader Alice Weidel promised to “tear them all down” if the AfD came to power.

“Down!” she cried to thunderous applause. “Down with these windmills of shame!”

Attacks on renewable energy and policies to reach net zero pollution have become a core pillar of far-right campaigns across the developed world. Although Weidel later said she had called to tear down only the wind turbines in Reinhardswald, rather than all those in Germany, her tirade marks a broader political opposition to wind power that is hardening as the energy transition picks up pace in Europe’s biggest polluter.

Wind turbines generated one-third of German electricity last year but have come under repeated attacks from the centre-right and far-right parties that won the most votes in February’s election. Friedrich Merz, the conservative leader who became chancellor on Tuesday, has described them as an “ugly” bridge solution that could one day be dismantled. The AfD, which German intelligence agencies classified as extremist last week, has made opposition to wind turbines a persistent addition to campaigns that typically focus on migration and crime.

In the most extreme circles, the tone has escalated to Nazi-era “blood and soil” rhetoric that has fallen on fertile ground. Hardline opponents see Reinhardswald as a symbol of a patriotic struggle against elitist climate policy, which they say has trampled over the native soil of the “fatherland”.

“Green ideology is globalist and ultimately rootless,” reads one Telegram post opposing the windfarm from Junge Alternative, the extremist youth wing of the AfD that was disbanded in March, and which was shared by Björn Höcke, a leading AfD figure who was fined last year for using a Nazi slogan. “They cannot see what is obvious to us patriotic youth: nature protection begins in nearby, native spaces.”

Around the world, huge public support for stronger climate action – as much as 89% of the global population – is failing to translate into swift cuts to pollution in the face of pushback from powerful actors and public opposition to the trade-offs in specific policies.

In Germany, researchers have found voters of all parties except the AfD are overwhelmingly in favour of expanding wind power – but support fell by 40 percentage points when people were asked about building wind turbines in forests.

Supporters of the windfarm in Reinhardswald, in the densely forested state of Hessen, complain the political debate has been poisoned by widespread misinformation. Ralf Paschold, the chief executive of Windpark Reinhardswald, said far-right opponents had spread “horror images” of the entire forest being torn down and replaced by huge industrial windmills.

They also misrepresent the health of the forest, he said. Rather than felling swathes of gnarled oaks in protected woodlands, two-thirds of the project area covers commercial spruce monocultures, planning documents show. The trees have already been ravaged by droughts, storms and bark beetle infestations that have been made worse by planet-heating pollutants.

“These wind turbines will help preserve the forest by generating electricity sustainably,” said Paschold. “If we keep spewing CO₂ and contaminating our atmosphere, there won’t be much of it left.”

Local opponents of the windfarm, which is the subject of several legal challenges aimed to halt construction, argue supporters have understated the project’s impact on an already fragile ecosystem and called for wind power to be placed outside of woods. But they are also uncomfortable with interventions from far-right actors who they say have coopted their democratic protest.

One local protest group, Save the Reinhardswald, said the AfD has posed with their banners for photoshoots and TikTok videos, while the neo-Nazi Third Way party has posted their online content on social media as if it were their own. The campaigners said their own credibility has suffered as a result of viral false claims about the project spread by far-right politicians “who do not seem to have even read the planning permission”.

“It’s completely brazen,” said Annette Müller-Zitzke, an occupational therapist and member of Save the Reinhardswald. “They portray themselves as saviours of the Reinhardswald solely for their own benefit, to pursue their own political goals, ultimately at the expense of the forest.”

Tensions between cutting carbon pollution and protecting local wildlife have grown across Europe as the best sites for renewable energy projects have been snapped up. Permitting changes taken under the last German government, which designated wind power a matter of “overriding public interest” in line with EU efforts to ditch Russian gas faster, have made it quicker and easier for developers to get clean energy projects approved.

Bärbel Heidebroek, president of the German wind lobby, said the current wave of opposition to wind projects was “not necessarily a threat to the industry, but there is of course an acceptance problem”.

“We see this in particular with wind parks in eastern German states, with massive protests that often aren’t carried out in a civil and fact-based way,” she added.

Campaigners have raised fears of the heightened rhetoric spilling over into violence as far-right forces have gained ground across the country and increasingly directed their anger at climate activists and the German Green party. In Reinhardswald – near the city of Kassel, where in 2019 a neo-Nazi murdered Walter Lübcke, a conservative mayor who supported immigration – locals say there has been a creeping rise in the extreme fringe of far-right activity.

In 2020, a neo-Nazi bought an old hotel on the outskirts of the forest to host far-right events. Local people have spotted members of the Reichsbürger movement, which has plotted to violently overthrow the German state, walking through the forest in black jackets and heavy military boots. Forestry officials have taken down signs declaring the forest to be their property and under the protection of Germanic tribes.

“With a focus on February 2025, an increasing number of rightwing extremist stickers were found on hiking trail markings in Reinhardswald,” a spokesperson for the state-owned company HessenForst said.

Müller-Zitzke, the local campaigner, said mainstream parties had ignored issues they had raised about the wind park in Reinhardswald, leaving space for far-right actors to push their own narrative.

“The AfD comes in and tells people their outrage is justified,” she said. “You cannot leave these topics to such people.”