When museum director Hilke Wagner went to the opening of a new public artwork in Dresden’s market square, she anticipated a friendly gathering of culture lovers. Instead, she and her colleagues found themselves surrounded by far-right protesters with megaphones, vilifying the sculpture’s organisers and its Syrian-German artist as “traitors”. “We came back to our offices and cried,” Wagner recalls. “We didn’t know what we should do.”

Welcome to the fraught reality of cultural programming in Dresden, a city rocked by far-right extremism. Wagner arrived here in November 2014 to run the Albertinum museum, one of Europe’s most prestigious collections of Romantic to contemporary art. A month before her arrival, an anti-Islam protest movement, Pegida, appeared on Dresden’s streets, rapidly swelling in size and extremism. Last November, Dresden city council formally declared a “Nazi emergency”.

Trigger … bus sculpture by Syrian-German artist Manaf Halbouni beside the historic Frauenkirche. Photograph: Iain Masterton/Alamy Stock Photo

In today’s polarised political climate, cultural producers face a difficult choice. Should they engage with reactionary voices, and risk normalising them, or boycott them, and risk alienating them further? Wagner’s path at the Albertinum offers a third possibility: a case study in how arts organisations can win over a hostile public, while remaining true to their ideals.

On her appointment, Wagner set out to energise Dresden’s contemporary arts scene and to insist on the pluralist learnings of the Albertinum’s collections. She wanted, she told Die Welt soon after starting the job, “to make it clear that our own culture is the result of a cultural mix”.

The AfD railed against any multicultural programming in favour of a 'predominant German culture'

But outside the Albertinum’s sandstone walls, the ascendant far right had very different ideas. As the Pegida movement morphed from a crowd of beige-coated pensioners into a mass of young, black-clad Identitarians, so too did the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party lurch from its original platform of opposing the euro towards flagrant ethno-religious nationalism.

Keenly focused on the arts and their effect on society, the AfD railed against any multicultural programming in favour of a “predominant German culture”. In Dresden in particular, the party committed itself to the preservation of classical German art, objecting to “marginal, minority-oriented” projects.

As Wagner settled into her job, the rhetoric in Dresden darkened. She remembers, in particular, the chants of “Drown! Drown!” roaring through Dresden’s streets as Pegida protested sea rescues of refugees. “Obviously, in that kind of situation, you really despair.”

Cultural mix … Hilke Wagner, director of the Albertinum museum, Dresden. Photograph: Sven Döring/The Guardian

In September 2017, the culture war turned personal. The trigger was an opinion piece in the regional newspaper Sächsische Zeitung, criticising Wagner, who grew up in West Germany, for her treatment of East German art. Wagner stresses that the article raised “important and overdue” questions. Three decades after Germany’s reunification, about 98% of the country’s leadership positions are held by individuals who grew up in the former West Germany. For many, a similar western bias also skews the treatment of German art history.

But Wagner was nevertheless startled by how swiftly and viciously the far right used the discussion. Two days after the article was published, a local AfD politician filed parliamentary requests demanding a list of the East and West German paintings currently on display at the Albertinum, as well as information surrounding Wagner’s appointment and her intentions to expand the museum’s contemporary programme.

It was so much hate at once. For two weeks, I barely left the house. I became really paranoid

A swell of vitriolic hate mail, emails and phone calls ensued, calling for Wagner’s immediate departure. People started recognising and confronting her in the streets. “It was so much hate and aggression at once,” she says. “For two weeks, I barely left the house. I became really paranoid.”

Wagner is wary of generalisations. She does not believe that all those who contacted her were far right sympathisers. But she also recognises the uneasy proximity between the assertion of local cultural heritage and the AfD agenda. “Clearly, the AfD grabs this as a populist theme. They really try to deepen this divide between east and west Germany.”

Wagner’s initial reaction erred towards distance. “At first, I thought, I can’t stay here,” she recalls. But then she picked up the telephone, and called one of her attackers. “I think that first engagement was out of anger, honestly. There was this egoistic element, this wish to clarify things. But then it was a really positive conversation. I noticed how much good it did – for me, but also for the other person.”

Local heritage … The 1,000-year Reich triptych, 1933-38, by Dresden painter Hans Grundig. Photograph: © Albertinum | Galerie Neue Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Bolstered, Wagner went on to call every single individual who had targeted her with hate mail or calls. All but one was a man. “There was no explicit sexism,” she notes, “but it’s certainly part of the situation.”

The conversations continued to prove constructive. People were surprised that she had got in touch. They talked, and listened. There were incremental steps towards reciprocal understanding. “We didn’t necessarily reach a point of agreement, but we cleared up misconceptions. I understood some of the grievances better.”

Other German arts institutions have adopted a firm shut-door policy on the far right. In Leipzig, an AfD-sympathising artist was excluded from an annual painting exhibition. In Berlin, the director of the Friedrichstadt-Palast theatre stated that AfD voters were not welcome at his venue.

We had shouting, door slamming, a lot of arguments and accusations. But it did develop in a positive direction

But in Dresden, where the far right courses through all strata of society, Wagner sees the duties of a public institution differently. “Pegida and AfD voters are everywhere here. They’re among families, colleagues and our network of sponsors. Where are we if we simply say we’re not talking to one another?”

Wagner implemented a roster of dialogue events and strategies across the Albertinum. The first step was an open-invitation discussion series. In the museum’s airy central atrium, long central tables were set up, flanked by curved rows of seating. Up to 600 people showed up at the events, including Pegida members, as well as many of the individuals who had attacked Wagner.

“It was initially very difficult,” she recalls. “We had shouting, door slamming, a lot of arguments and accusations. But it did develop in a positive direction.” One of the men who had previously sent Wagner hate mail stood up and apologised. Another said the Albertinum had come to feel “like our living room”.

This domestic atmosphere was key for Wagner, who titled the discussion series We Need to Talk. “I found it important to establish this feeling of personal relationship. We had participants from across the social and political spectrum, with a range of attitudes. And we learned a lot from each other.”

Then came curatorial strategies. Like many places porous to far-right extremism, Dresden’s identity is punctured by experiences of erasure. Capital of the state of Saxony, the city was once a major economic centre, flush with trade and baroque architecture.

Loss … Dresden in ruins after Allied bombing raids in 1945. Photograph: Richard Peter Snr/Getty Images

In February 1945, 90% of the city centre was destroyed by allied air raids, killing up to 25,000 residents – the majority women and children. Then, after a period of architectural and industrial revival under the East German government, reunification saw Dresden lose much of its employment, ownership and young people to the west.

Wagner seeks to retrieve periods of artistic energy from these successive waves of loss – not least Dresden’s lively interwar abstraction scene. “Kandinsky, Mondrian, Lissitzky were all extremely active here in the 1920s. I want to remind Dresdeners of that modernist history, and nurture their openness to and pride in what happened here.”

Through the dialogue series, it also became clear that her public wanted to see more imagery from the East German era, as well as paintings depicting the wartime destruction of Dresden. This presented a dilemma: both genres have been leveraged by the AfD to goad a sense of civic victimhood.

Wagner’s solution was not to deny her visitors’ wishes, but to challenge any simplistic victim narrative with additional nuance and context. Paintings depicting Dresden’s destruction were presented alongside international anti-war works by Maria Lassnig and Marlene Dumas. An installation by Wolfgang Tillmans showed the destruction of Dresden alongside that of Coventry. “I wanted to make sure we weren’t isolating these works, that we were showing them on eye level with other perspectives.”

Eye level … Hilke Wagner opens an exhibition of East German art at the Albertinum. Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy Stock Photo

Wagner also honoured the request for more East German art, but deflected the patriarchal discourse of the AfD with an emphasis on the country’s female practitioners. An exhibition curated by Susanne Altmann showed 36 female artists from East Germany and other former Soviet states. Next year, a thematic show will emphasise East Germany’s inclusive ideals, exploring its allegiances with South Africa, Mozambique and India.

Not everyone is persuaded by Wagner’s measures. Shortly before last Christmas, she was moved to hear a refugee and migrant organisation gathered in the museum’s atrium, singing festive songs. As she watched from the gallery above, a nearby German man tutted disapprovingly at the multiethnic chorus. “Poor Germany,” he said.

It was a depressing reminder of the challenges she faces. But Wagner isn’t giving up. For her, it is exactly this kind of personal exposure that might lead to better social cohesion. “As a museum,” she says, “we are one of the few places where such direct encounters can still happen.”

There are signs her determination is paying off. Wagner hasn’t received any hate mail since January. The other day she bumped into one of her former critics in the street. “He said he owed me a nice letter.”