Öhringen lies deep in the automaking country, the homeland of Germany’s biggest industry and a source of national pride. And by most appearances, life is pretty good. The unemployment rate in Öhringen is a mere 2.3 percent. Restaurants, nursing homes and kindergartens are begging for workers. The city government is using bulging tax receipts to build a new secondary school and a hospital. But just outside Öhringen’s tidy old quarter, dominated by the steeple of a 15th-century stone church, there are signs that the economic upswing that has nourished this idyll is beginning to falter. A factory that makes air filters is closing, putting 240 people out of work. The plant, owned by Mahle, an auto parts manufacturer based in nearby Stuttgart, is a victim of forces that are reshaping the auto industry and threatening the foundation of the […]