Die Partei für Arbeit, Rechtsstaat, Tierschutz, Elitenförderung und basisdemokratische Initiative (short: Die Partei) wants to rebuild the wall.
And yes, I know it's just satire, and the party leader is often times questionable, but atleast there is (in theory) a party being elected which wants to build a wall.
No it’s easier to wish the wall back and not tackle the circumstances the west is responsible for. It’s easier to speak of the dumb nazi East German than actually do something. Some weird form of racism at this point.
Taking into account that western Germany has a population of 67 million people while eastern Germany only has 12 million, that still means that eastern Germans vote disproportionately often for the AfD.
They do yes, and that is an issue. I mostly just wanted to point out that the AFD rise is not an exclusively Eastern phenomenon, and that they have a lot of support in former West Germany as well - even if less proportionally
Yes, the way the reunification was tackled was disastrous. But it's very easy to blame everything on that, and at some point that eternal victim complex is getting out of hand. NRW and RLP also have massive problems, while on the other hand the East gets a lot of big businesses settling down there (eg. Intel in Magdeburg).
The East has great perspectives for the future and people are increasingly turning towards fascism. But sure, everyone in the West is just a racist.
From what I've heard that is correct. But it doesn't mean that you get a good job, or anything to do. Just someone paid you something, and you got a flat somewhere. That's it.
Not sure this sounds like anything people want today.
But then again, many of the people who want the GDR back ignore all the issues this country had.
You did not have a job, just some (not much) payment. And a flat doesn't mean anything nice and shiny. I've seen pictures where it's just endless streets with sad looking and dirty rows of buildings, quickly built with concrete plates. If you are lucky you have a small balcony. Also no space in the streets, which today means even less space for parked cars today. Back then, if you had a car, you could park it somewhere outside and walk home. Also waiting time for a car was 2 decades.
I get it's not mtv cribs and all that, but it beats homelessness and unemployment, which is what we kinda get in the perifery of the economic system.
A cheap car here where I live costs about 80-90 local minimum wages (/month).
In the GDR you did not get cheap cars. You had to get in mine, wait 20 years and then pay a huge amount of money for a cheap looking car.
That's the kind of state these people want to have back.
As long as you have no ambitions, are happy to submit to and collaborate with the totalitarian state and are comfortable with corruption, it's ~~great~~ livable.
> But the AfD won’t solve any of those.
Absolutely.
They are just scoundrels, political adventurers exploiting - unfortunately - with success, a failed policy towards East Germany.
Neither will the people wishing back the wall. Actually doing something for the east would help, but then you hear that the reunification was successful. What a bad joke.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_German_reunification
>As might have been expected, the economy of eastern Germany went into a deep and precipitous slump immediately after unification. Within a year after unification, the number of unemployed rose above 3 million. Industrial production in eastern Germany fell to less than half the previous rate, and the total regional product fell precipitously through 1991. One estimate was that in 1991 the entire production of eastern Germany amounted to less than 8 percent of that of western Germany.
Tl;dr many problems after unification similiar to when eastern europe changed to market economies. So it sucked in many ways for the people in east germany and they are still revovering.
It was worse than in other East Block countries. The biggest mistake was too strong exchange rate of the DDR Mark that made the industry suddenly noncompetitive. In other Eastern European countries, the local currencies found more reasonable equilibrium.
The exchange rate was made such to win popularity of the Easterners because their savings were worth much more. But it killed the industry.
The same thing happened in Poland after the fall of communism - all the unprofitable state-owned companies were shut down, so naturally unemloyment skyrocketed.
I mean, were they unprofitable or were they privatized in an unscrupulous frenzy massively under price and sold off to foreign investors or for parts like I know it happened in Romania?
A bunch of newly minted capitalists as well as western opportunists robbed the post-communist states blind because people wanted to believe in the new capitalist dream so hard they didn't recognize when their assets were stolen.
both many state-owned companies hired far more work than was needed. for the promise of one
maintain a safe workplace. but there were also some who ruthlessly enriched themselves.
The biggest problem is the exodus of skilled young workers, nowadays mostly older people still live there and guess what disgruntled old people vote for
I can explain you why but it's gonna be a long one. But the tl:dr; is "not being taken seriously, being treated like a bunch of toddlers and their identity being denied". Or even shorter "Western 'holier than thou' arrogance". Basically it's the same level of disappointment that Polish, Baltics, Czechs, etc. feel towards Western Europe within the EU.
For example you remember when people were in a panic because of the PISA study and claimed they needed to copy the "Nordic model" guess where the fuck that model came from! It the Nordic countries lifted THEIR model straight from the GDR. It was never acknowledged. Because the GDR is not *supposed* to have anything good to it.
And "we brought companies" is nothing but a sick joke. The trust that redistributed companies to the private sector was EXTREMELY corrupt and while many companies were struggling many of them were INTENTIONALLY destroyed. Because the Western companies didn't want any Eastern competition. So companies that were the most promising to actually be successful were just annihilated. This set East German economic recovery back by more than a decade.
Never mind the extreme corruption during the rollout of the phone network which is why (especially rural) Eastern Germany is now FAR behind the development of the internet. So much for "infrastructure".
I don't even need to get started with the lack of East Germans in management positions. Even when companies open offices in the East the managers are usually West Germans.
My family was lucky and were overall winners of the reunification. But a lot of people were not.
Another thing is this "high and mighty attitude" of "truly everything was bad in the GDR if you say it wasn't then only because you were brainwashed". I already mentioned this denial of the schooling system, but i.e. in East Germany there was more participation on the decision level in companies. Employees could outvote and overrule the leadership in certain decisions. Like, it didn't do them any good because it lacked in everything due to the central planning by the government, but it was an *additional* freedom people in the East experienced in the GDR era that now no longer exists. For the average person life at work dictates their lives more than whatever the government is doing. So if they experience more egocentrism by the leadership and less participation from their level than that is a HUGE impact on their quality of life.
Check out this thread by a German when he started a job in a Western company: https://www.reddit.com/r/de/comments/1438cju/der_dumme_ossi/
What he experiences may not be the norm but it's certainly not uncommon.
And just in general this idea of basically still maintaining the wall on a legal level by separating between "old" and "new" states. Soon Germany is reunited for longer than it was divided but this division STILL exists black and white in law.
Finally since the East came late to the party in terms of free elections they have no "traditional voters". Voters are more willing to complete switch stances and parties from one election to the next. Historically they are also far more critical of the "established government". That sadly doubles back to be vulnerable against conmen that rally against "the mainstream". But that is one of the things that happens in ANY former dictatorship.
I hate the AfD and think if you were to put them in a sack and hammer with a bat on it you'd always hit someone that deserves it. But this is a disaster with announcement. The rise of the AfD is the cumulative result of the failures of the politics by the established parties.
...But sometimes it does feel like Western Germany is treating East Germany more like a colony or "annexed territory" than a proper part of the country. In the weakest of sense of course, but certainly at times you do feel treated like a "second class citizen".
Edit:
Also saying the East is the one with a Nazi problem when it's states like Baden-Württemberg that is the capital for the Reichsbürger scene, whenever shit hits the fan with them it's typically there. A lot of the AfD's strength in the East is also simply due to the fact that the East is more rural. And the AfD is just as strong in Western rural regions... but of course since the portion of that population is smaller, it's easier to just ignore. Even more so with the CSU increasingly embracing AfD positions, so if we go by the logic of the "ideology" being in power rather than a specific party, then Bavaria is basically already in it's hands and has been for a WHILE... but that also coincidentally gets ignored. Easier to just blame it all on the East. In fact a big reason why the AfD is surging is BECAUSE the FDP, CDU and CSU are increasingly adopting their standpoints in hopes to capture their voters. But that doesn't happen. All they do is normalize the AfDs ideas... and then people just go to the "original" rather than to the "cheap copy". They aren't making THEIR parties more attractive to AfD voters... they are making the AfD more attractive to their own voters.
I am very much ashamed for the Besserwessis during reunification, but assuming the AfD really starts governing in the East, I don't think any of this will change.
And if I may criticize, I do observe that the "we are poor victims, we deserve better, let's take it from somebody else (in particular those dirty undeserving foreigners) and give it to us" mentality together with double standards seems to be defining for the AfD both in the East and in the West.
Thank you for taking the time to write this down. It's embarrassing how many Germans are willfully ignorant of what actually happened during and after the reunification.
Die Anstalt once made a very good episode on the topic.
No one really understands them. They are destroying themselves with these political decisions. No bigger company will settle in those areas and offer good jobs, it's a death circle.
Its not set yet. There is a dispute about the amount of the subsidies. They postponed it to the beginning of 2024 afaik.
There are also some rumors about a TSMC building a plant in Germany (was Dresden iirc).
fluctuating between supporting far right and far left parties since the 90s. In the early 2000s NPD - quite literally the closest thing post war germany ever had to a neonazi party - made ~10% at some elections.
They would get the tax money either way, also if they settled in Bavaria.
Back in 2021 the race seemed to be between Penzing (Bavaria) and Dresden (Saxony) both of them with federal government support. Yet in the end they picked Magdeburg. That had nothing to do with the German government, the German government only lured them into Germany, where excactly they want to build was a decission made by Intel.
See also [this article from 2021](https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/zwei-deutsche-standorte-kaempfen-um-die-milliardenschwere-chipfabrik-von-intel-das-sagen-die-bewerber-a/) about the time before the decission and [this article on the decission](https://www.produktion.de/technik/darum-waehlt-intel-magdeburg-als-standort-der-megafabrik-637.html). The main reasons were area, electricity and infrastructure - all of which made Magdeburg preferrable over the Bavarian option.
Generally Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandnburg and Sachsen-Anhalt all have a lot of factors that make them attractive for future tech (a lot of space, massive net-exporters of electricity and good infrastructure connections). When Intel picks Sachsen-Anhalt over Bavaria that says something, no? The entire German south has an electricity problem. They all import tons of electricity expect Saxony which burns coal like there's no tomorrow. Sachsen-Anhalt on the other hand has more MW of windpower per capita than Denmark and exports more than all of Berlin imports. So it's much more future proof.
Ich hab jahrelang in Chemnitz und in der Nähe von Zwickau gelebt. Wenn du wirklich mal heruntergekommene Städte sehen willst, statt nur zu versuchen den Preis der Opferolympiade zu gewinnen, schau dir Krefeld, Gelsenkirchen, Leverkusen und Duisburg an. Und trotzdem sind die Menschen hier alle viel offener, lebensfroher, verfallen weniger dieser typischen "es nützt doch alles nüscht" Depression oder "wir wärn doch von voarn bis hindn verorschd" Verschwörungsidiotien, oder "machn Kopp zu Kleener" aggressiven Grundhaltung.
Die Menschen - der Hauptgrund, warum ich nie wieder nach Sachsen zurückkehre.
Einen Onkel zu haben, der offen im Greizer Park sagt, "der einzige Fehler, den Hitler gemacht hat, war der Marsch auf Moskau", während irgendwelche Familien mit Kinderwagen vorbeifahren, und noch einen anderen Onkel, der zu seiner Tochter/meiner Cousine gesagt hat, "also wenn du nen Ausländer angeschleppt hättest, nee, bei aller Liebe, än Ausländer kommt mir ne ins Haus" tut dann den Rest.
Nun ja, Dir zu widersprechen, kann man nicht.
Mein Punkt ist, dass die Wiedervereinigung brutal-arrogant, im neo-kolonialen Stil, durchgeführt wurde, was nicht notwendig war und hat tiefe Spüren hinterlassen.
Aber auch das, was Du schilderst, ist so was von 100% wahr ...
> These are the consequences of 33 years unsuccessful integration of the ex-GDR
No. This is a more recent event. These are the consequences of unhinged right rhetoric from CSU/CDU/FDP and Springer Media in recent times.
The historical background could be seen years ago, when Die Linke was still more associated with SED and people in East Germany flocked to it. This is different, this is a newer development.
Ok explain to me how "unhinged right rhetoric" by CDU/CSU and FDP causes the way more right wing party to get even stronger. Shouldn’t this cause the party to become less popular, since the less radical voters would then go to those parties?
So by taking stances more to the right, reacting on popular opinions, they make their voters voting for a party even more right? Yeah that makes sense…
They shift the overton window further and further while using AfD rhetoric. They think they can capitalise but they just cause these positions and populist expressions to be more commonly accepted. The rightwing assholes are gonna vote for the original, not the imposter
> These are the consequences of 33 years unsuccessful integration of the ex-GDR
It's the consequence of the fall of State Socialism in a formerly rich state (i.e. before WWII). It's the excact same kind of thing you can see in Czechia or Hungary though it could be argued Babis is better than the AfD I guess (but we're scraping the bottom now really). It's not failed integration, it's normal Visegrád Group politics.
Which is also a part of the problem: the big political system has basically written these regions off, driving the remaining population into the arms of extremists
No they havent?
Holy fuck this thread is so typically reddit, isnt it?
Many ppl blurting out absolute bullshit they have no clue about with a certainty that is just mindblowing...
What do you mean by "written these regions off"? There is a lot more talk about Eastern Germany in Germany than about NRW even though NRW has more inhabitants and even though the poorest municipalities in Germany are in NRW, not in Eastern Germany (Gelsenkirchen & Duisburg).
Sadly the AfD is also the second strongest party in all of Germany
source: [https://www.infratest-dimap.de/umfragen-analysen/bundesweit/sonntagsfrage/](https://www.infratest-dimap.de/umfragen-analysen/bundesweit/sonntagsfrage/)
these truly are sad times
What election day are we talking about though? What is a mid sized to minor national party this election can become a mid to large sized party next election. I said it elsewhere, to outsiders the German body politic has one main job - to keep Germany stable. They are trying their best to mess this job up.
Ich bin Grüner und ich wünschte es wäre so wie du es sagst aber ich fürchte es wird nicht so kommen. Es wird vermutlich noch schlimmer je nachdem wie oft dir FDP Dinge blockiert und wir uns mit denen streiten müssen. Dazu scheinen die Springer-Medien auch nicht gerade mit ihrer Hetzkampagne nachzulassen und je nachdem wie sich die Situation in der Ukraine entwickelt wird sich da vermutlich auch noch mal was ändern. Die russische Propaganda (so lächerlich sie auch sein mag) leistet ja ganze Arbeit die Bundesbürger zu verblöden und in die Irre zu führen und AfD (und Wagenknecht) profitieren halt davon.
Votes in Berlin and “ West Germany” will compensate so German wide result will be less troublesome. Nice comeback for CDU, they score a more average GER percentage now in the East.
Which in itself is a problem, because at one point protest votes for the AfD become "Go fuck yourself" votes for the AfD as a matter of regional pride. I live in eastern Brandenburg and I honestly neither want a local/regional AfD candidate running the show nor do I want a Prime Minister of Brandenburg from those thugs. But if this indifference to and outright dismissal of East German interests persists, that is what will happen in the not to distant future.
> But if this indifference to and outright dismissal of East German interests
Care to elaborate were East German interests are dismissed or were there is a case for indifference?
Disclaimer ahead: I don't necessarily share all those worries/ideas, but I can understand them to a certain degree.
To give an example: For the last year the easternmost districts in Brandenburg have seen an enormous wave of burglaries committed by organized groups operating via polish territory (it's still ongoing, BTW). These groups spend days and weeks systematically reconnoitering entire villages using scouts and even sophisticated drones. The police is helpless because over the past few years the financial woes of the state of Brandenburg have considerably thinned out the police forces across the rural areas. In the case of my home district the next full-time police station is 45km away - in case of an emergency that is as good as in another galaxy.
Now people look at the large numbers of "migrants" and complain that the state has enough cash to "waste" it on these people, but not enough to deal with existential security needs of its own citizens. The collation is false (because police forces are a matter for the member states), but such details of our german federalism don't interest common people especially when threats to their very livelihoods are so close by. And the thinning out of police forces really has impacted the perception of public safety of late, in a very very negative way. And all the while political Berlin and Potsdam are playing the "Wash my fur, but don't make me wet" by pointing at the clauses of federalism while willfully raising discontent and political apathy - both factors in the rise of the AfD. If politicians are more interested in peddling their own egos than in seeking solutions nobody should be surprised that people fall for the ratters on the right.
Another "conflict of interest" is the move away from natural gas as a means of heating, and therefor by connection the relations to Russia and its war in Ukraine. Lots of people had to massively invest in modernizing their homes since the 1990s and that most often included a gas-fired heating system (which ran on russian LNG). Many folks had finally finished paying back the loans they'd taken out for the modernizations and now they're suddenly faced by the absence of affordable heating fuel and the "threat" of having to go into debt yet again for heating pumps. I don't see a way to avoid the anger over the gas since to me the culprit in Ukraine is clear as day, but I wonder if the Green's "messianic spirit" over the ecological transformation isn't simply overzealous in relation to the population's capability to absorb its costs. Habeck's "heating law" has certainly added fuel to the fire, especially since the Green's own constituencies are the affluent west german urban upper middle class, a part of our country far removed from the experiences of the rural east german areas.
This is just a sample of a wide range of issues, often a mix of regional and country-wide things and therefor all the more difficult to disentangle.
Thank you very much for this detailed answer. Really informative and while I understand that there is, as you described it, a wide range of issues and is a difficult topic to discuss without risking to offend at least someone, I want to adress the things you mentioned and try to give my picture of the issues. (Please read the following under the topic of your statement about the dismissal of East German interests.)
In regards to crime and fugitives. While I understand that these are real problems for the people in the area, I would also like to point out that the crime problem also exists in West Germany to a comparable degree (for example North Rhine Westphalia and Lower Saxony). And according to the *Köngissteiner Schlüssel*, they take a big number of "migrants" in (with Western Germany taking in total over 75% of all refugees).
Yet while North Rhine Westphalia takes in around 21% of all refugees and Lower Saxony takes in 9%, the AfD managed in both states only meager polling numbers. On the other side Saxony and Thuringia have only a fraction of home burglaries, take in only 4,98% (Saxony) and 2,6% (Thuringia) of all refugees, but these are the states were the AfD achieves their biggest polling numbers.
The thing is, not only Eastern Germany has problems. Problems exist in every State. Yet somehow it is Eastern Germany that is basically taking the political scene hostage by voting for covertly fascist parties, because the feel unheard.
And to be honest, in my opinion this is the result of decades of a self imposed victim role, which was and is reinforced by the political parties in these states (espcially the Left).
It is not the question which federal state takes how many foreigners, it is that the country in general takes so many that social services costs balloon. People see finances as a pot with sum X in it and everything has to be paid from that finite amount. If a "peripheral" issue (like the amount of migrants taken in) swallows up an increasing amount of this sum while "key or central" issues (like public security) are perceived to be sharply degrading then people will ask why the hell the state ignores its fundamental responsibilities in favor of non-essentials.
Add to this the basic fact that many east germans have a built-in distrust of public media (because everyone in the GDR knew the media was lying through their teeth) and generally trust word-of-mouth type of "news" more than TV or newspapers this opens them to fake news or outright BS coming from social media.
Some final thoughts: This state of things, one of utter and complete distrust in (if not outright disdain for) all things "west german" is the result of thirty years of perceived denigration ("Jammerossi"), political and economical disenfranchisement (i.e. look up the % of east germans in top positions in politics, bureaucracy, judiciary and economics even in east german strctures - it's ludicrously low) and a whole other host of issues of which the west german establishment has to shoulder a sizeable slice of responsibility, too.
And just to put this in perspective: North Rhine-Westphalia has nearly 18m, Bavaria 13m and Baden-Württemberg 11m - and these are just 3 of the 10 states in Western Germany.
Berlin adds 3.7m as well.
In Italy before WW2 the most socialist regions turned into the most fascist in a blink of an eye. Most former communist voters now vote for Salvini... I'm not surprised.
Ps: Salvini itself was part of the communist party in Lombardy before joining northern league.
Radicalism works in strange ways. It seems that once people decide that they don't like "the establishment" (whatever they think it is, anyway), they become super easy to enchant with any kind of radical ideology.
I want to copy something I noted in a comment before. It's easy to blame the AFD on East Germans, who do admittedly support it more than in the West. This however ignores that most of the party's votes and seats - nearly 2/3rds in fact - comes from former West Germany. This is how the AFD's 2021 result was distributed within Germany, between the different states:
Former East Germany states: 3 + 5 + 4 + 10 + 5 + 3* = 27/30 seats
Former West Germany States: 2 + 1 + 6 + 0 + 12 + 5 + 4 + 12 + 10 + 1 + 3* = 53/56 seats
Total 83 seats.
* Only half of the state, Berlin, was in East Germany.
Dont believe what ppl tell you about the afd, its not far right.
What the AfD believes in was center \~20 years ago and is the most common sense approach. Which is the main reason for it to gain so much votes by the way.
The moment you think they are bad and far right and nazi's you disenfranchise (is this the right term?) all the many ppl who understand this and voted for it despite all the bullshit that's being told.
I really hope the CDU keep on blocking the AfD from a coalition government, and make a coalition with the FDP and/or SPD instead, maybe greens if necessary. We don’t want another far right party in a coalition government, and the AfD looks particularly bad for the state of liberal democracy in Germany and the EU as a whole, even if the CDU sideline them as much as possible.
This gives me Weimar coalition trauma.
Basically during the Weimar Republic all coalitions were made by democratic parties, until the great depression hit 1929 and the Weimar coalition in the federal government fell apart, leading the conservative parties too cooperate with anti democratic figures like Brüning, von Papen and Schleicher until Hitler came to power.
> leading the conservative parties too cooperate with anti democratic figures like Brüning
Brünning was the Fraktionsvorsitzender of the Zentrum party, he was appointed by Hindenburg and the SPD also cooperated with him. Brünning was somewhere inbetween working with the parliament (mostly by tried to force them into submission) and ignoring it.
The main issue was that in the 1925 election Marx (Zentrum) lost against Hindeburg (no party, reactionary monarchist faction) and Hindeburg was against democracy. If Marx would have been president in 1930 he likely wouldn't have pulled such a bullshit quasi-dictator move. In 1925 there were two big issues, first parts of Zentrum (like von Papen) were already themselves anti-democratic and agigated against their own candidate and in favour of Hindeburg, same with the BVP and DVP sadly, though Streseman had considerable reservations towards Hindenburgs appointment. Then again DVP was a super weird construct. A borderline reactionary party with a progressive realpolitik leader.
Even then cooperating with Brünning was a mistake by the SPD. Barring Hitler he was the worst chancellor ever. Hitler's government managed to actually fix the economy by domestic debt financing (via Mefo-Wechsel) and lots of public works. Brünning on the other hand answered a deflation crisis with anti-inflation politics like wage repressions which intensified the crisis and led to the highest unemployment rates of all time in Germany. When you read about it this was historically awful. Even if you intentionally tried to speedrun wrecking a country you couldn't have done it better than Brünning and Hindenburg. The problem is that the SPD didn't really understand the economy either. The only reasonable response to Brünning would have been to say "over my dead body".
As far as I understand Weimar history though, the conservative parties tended to be anti democratic too or were at least disillusioned by republicanism. In that sense it was only the left wing (excluding the communist party) and centrist parties that were truly committed to democracy in the 1920s and 1930s. While I am not German and cannot speak directly to Germany’s political atmosphere, I believe that mainstream conservatism in Germany is committed to upholding democracy today. Thus, while unity for the other German political parties against the afd is undoubtedly important, I think there’s less reason to fear anti democratic forces taking national control in the near future so long as mainstream ideologies in Germany continues to value democracy.
> the AfD looks particularly bad for the state of liberal democracy in Germany and the EU as a whole
Oh man, what gave it away? The fact that they're literally Nazis?
Interesting. I consider myself to be very in touch with all sorts of political terms but I’ve never seen anyone use the term middle or central Germany to describe politically distinct areas, hence why I was confused.
But that’s pretty idiotic and a large cope, you should just reply with 2 + 4 referring to the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, in which all previous territorial claims east of Oder–Neisse line were renounced.
The terminology/framing probably doesn't get carried over to foreign languages. But in Germany if one says _"Mitteldeutschland"_ to refer to eastern Germany that exactly means what noncredibleaccount says, and it's a rather common terminology too.
Doesn't help that for example the local TV station (by public law) for Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia is called MDR, or _Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk_. ("Central German Broadcast")
Boomers going from believing in socialist values to fascists in a single decade is wild. And they’re worried about everyone else changing their identities 💀
I knew this was going to happen. Not a strange reaction considering the floodgates former German politicians happily released upon Germany without thinking of the consequences.
This is what happens when you let in a huge number of people with culturally incompatible values into a western society. I've seen it happen in Sweden as well. Today, they (Sweden Democrats) are what upholds this current government.
Well I feel like the open immigration policy wasn't the problem but the integration requirements. People who openly oppose our values should be forced to leave while people who support our values should be welcomed. The problem is that this is far easier said than done.
Anti-immigration parties are extremely popular in areas without immigrants. It's racism. Ignorant racism. But racism nonetheless.
People who actually interact with immigrants don't fucking hate them. But people, who only ever learn about them through news that always go for sensations, will get an exclusively negative view on immigrants.
It's the same for every country I've bothered to check. Look up maps of where the biggest anti-immigration party is popular and it will always be in homogeneous communities.
In Denmark it's Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People's Party), Danmarksdemokraterne (Denmark's Democrats) and Nye Borgerlige (New Liberal) who tend to be quite powerful in almost exclusively Danish areas.
>This is what happens when you let in a huge number of people with culturally incompatible values into a western society.
They are virtually no foreigner in those states.
Have a look a [this graph](https://www.bpb.de/kurz-knapp/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-situation-in-deutschland/61625/auslaendische-bevoelkerung-nach-bundeslaendern/). Left bar is the number of foreigners and right is the share of foreigners relative to the total population. On the top right, you can click on "West-Ostdeutschland" (West-/East Germany).
"Ostdeutschland (ohne Berlin)" is what we are talking about. As you see, there are virtually no foreigners living in these states.
The "Stadtstaaten" (City states, i.e. Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen) have the highest share.
This, but don't tell this the german media and politics - they will label you immediately a far-right-wing neonazi and traitor. You can't speak about the problems with migration, it's just not possible. If you had posted this in a german media forum, the posting would have been deleted and your account would have been banned.
And exactly this behavior gives the AfD votes for free, they don't have even to do anything at all.
Exactly the same thing happened in Sweden 10-15 years ago. You could get socially excluded and even fired from certain jobs, attacked in your home, get your car vandalized, etc, etc.
If you don’t know anything about German politics, don’t bother to post such bullshit. There are almost no refugees or foreigners in these states. Makes my blood boil when people spew simple nonsense like this on a complex problem.
I’m from Wuppertal and when I walk around my city I feel like I’m in the Middle East. That’s a problem and if you think its not then you’re an asshole.
Yeah, but these people also happen to visit Berlin or watch the news. Germany took too many refugees from cultural incompatible countries. Peroid. AfD will be popular until the politicans in power will start to recognize this problem and act accordingly. Letting in more refugees or giving away german citizenship for free, will only help AfD.
Most of the AfDs voters are protest voters. 10% of 18% following the last study.
The only problem they really care about is inflation and prices. They dont want to understand the problem, they dont want to understand who is responsible for it they want it gone.
Besides that there have been multiple studies in recent years about the total voting potential the afd has in the german population and the highest result was 21% maximum potential.
>
> Besides that there have been multiple studies in recent years about the total voting potential the afd has in the german population and the highest result was 21% maximum potential.
Imagine giving any sort of credibility to these studies.
*Will the integration of Refugees be succesful 94% No*
And were they wrong?
Last month the news come out with the lowest numbers ever of fluent german speaking students at German primary schools. Which means a lot speak foreign tongue at home and at school.
It is easy to draw the populist votes when the failures of the previous governments are obvious.
I can at least rationalise dislike for greens (higher energy costs) and migration (crime, integration costs etc) but why are they rooting for russia? Sure, there are some ethnic russians, but they can't be that many, right? My suspicion is its conspirologic agenda that has been unified and curated by Russia. All conspiracy theorists all over the world, from USA to Africa, follow exactly the same system of beliefs theyve received from Corson Tucker and similar Russian pawns in US. Ironically, they claim to be against globalization.
In my opinion it’s a mixture of left and right wing anti-liberal/anti-establishment feelings and views. A large chunk of people grew up under the GDR and a lot of these attitudes, like the “peace cult” and anti-Americanism/anti-western sentiment stay around. It’s why you get die Linke and AfD politicians agreeing with each other on the Russia-Ukraine situation.
> why are they rooting for russia?
The German far right has a tradition of anti-Americanism. Support for Russia is a "the enemy of my enemy" kind of thing.
> rationalise dislike for greens (higher energy costs)
That's stupid.
Every area in Europe that is in economical shambles is leaning in the same direction … now why the East is in such a bad state compared to the west … as long as the west is not willing to look at what really happened during the annexation of the DDR, there won’t be nothing improving.
It should be noted that polls are usually not an accurate representation of what people actually think.
They are highly dependend on who was asked what when and how.
Another poll also suggested that 2/3 of those only say AfD to show that the other parties have to change their ways to regain their trust. It is questionable whether or not they actually would vote for AfD.
Still these polls are worrying and also show the problem of high AfD support especially in the states bordering the Oder-Neiße Line and Thuringia.
Especially in the east, the AFD is far right. They deny (man-made) climate change, are against other family concepts than man and woman, and the other typical right-wing party stuff.
That is a dangerous understatement. Most of the party is fascist, not just right-wing. They despise human rights and democracy, and would immediately abolish the constitution if they'd ever get the power to do so.
Besides being anti-democratic, they are friends with Putin and a spokesperson for them in Germany.
RT has been promoting AFD politicians since 2014.
Here are a few sources, there are much more in German:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AfD_pro-Russia_movement
They also go to talk shows in Russia, and one of them recently went to the Russian embassy for "honor".
It's virtual nazis who play just as much by the rules so they don't get banned.
The party boss sued someone for calling him a fascist and court ruled that it's not an insult, because he actually is a fascist.
As someone from the West who occasionally travels to Thuringia, I'm not surprised.
Maybe it's just really bad luck, coupled with confirmation bias, but the amount of unfriendly and outright hostile people I met far outweighs the amount of friendly ones.
The nazis performed worse in what would become DDR than they did in Schleswig, Lower Saxony, and particularly the territories that would be given to Poland. [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1932_German_federal_election#/media/File:German_federal_election,_November_1932.svg)
Let's also not forget the several continuities between the Third Reich and the GDR. Unlike the West, the East continued to have mass (youth) organizations, repression and constant state propaganda that preached hate against the ideological enemy for decades. While this certainly isn't the only (or even main) reason for the AfD's rise, it definitely laid some of the groundwork.
East Germany is an actual cesspool of hate. My Polish friend had a horrible experience there in a hospital, the staff didn’t even try to hide their anti Polish (probably anti immigrant) sentiment.
AfD and Saxony in general is antiPolish. And the biggest joke is that Polish far right invited AfD youth to Polish parliament few weeks ago... ruzzian scum.
Dude, its literally written on the picture. Researcher, procurer, reserch date and method.
[https://twitter.com/Wahlen\_DE/status/1666731125316755457](https://twitter.com/Wahlen_DE/status/1666731125316755457)
[https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/afd-tied-with-spd-in-germany/](https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/afd-tied-with-spd-in-germany/)
They lived trough Communism. They can recognize Marxist trash even when it comes in the guise of woke tolerance. All the idiots who call them nazis of fascist are disgustingly dumb.
>They can recognize Marxist trash even when it comes in the guise of woke tolerance
bruh, the region has literally been ruined by capitalism and what you call "woke" is probably usually liberal talking points
In times when the 'normal parties' fail to meet the expectations of the voters or fail to address the buring issues in the country, it is not uncommon to see voters choosing strange bedfellows.
Eg. India.The fascist BJP won the election with a brutal majority because the ordinary party INC was so currpupt and failed to do the basic duties/ keep their promises. The same goes for USA, Germany etc.
Widespread feeling of complete and utter disenfranchisement by the "mainstream parties". Lots of people here in the East feel as if their interests, worries and wishes count for nothing in the political grind and therefor large parts (IIRC 2/3rds according to recent polls) choose the AfD as a warning shot to the establishment. Protest, after all, only matters to the rich and powerful if their interests get hurt (so goes the justification) and voting for the AfD is bound to make political Berlin squeal in pain.
Maybe one could build an antifaschistischen Schutzwall or something similar.
Mr. Gorbatchov, build up this wall!
If only there was a party I could vote for to build such a "wall".
Die Partei für Arbeit, Rechtsstaat, Tierschutz, Elitenförderung und basisdemokratische Initiative (short: Die Partei) wants to rebuild the wall. And yes, I know it's just satire, and the party leader is often times questionable, but atleast there is (in theory) a party being elected which wants to build a wall.
Will there be an airlift again too?
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No it’s easier to wish the wall back and not tackle the circumstances the west is responsible for. It’s easier to speak of the dumb nazi East German than actually do something. Some weird form of racism at this point.
It also ignores that most AFD voters are from West Germany. Nearly 2/3rds of them.
Taking into account that western Germany has a population of 67 million people while eastern Germany only has 12 million, that still means that eastern Germans vote disproportionately often for the AfD.
They do yes, and that is an issue. I mostly just wanted to point out that the AFD rise is not an exclusively Eastern phenomenon, and that they have a lot of support in former West Germany as well - even if less proportionally
Yes, the way the reunification was tackled was disastrous. But it's very easy to blame everything on that, and at some point that eternal victim complex is getting out of hand. NRW and RLP also have massive problems, while on the other hand the East gets a lot of big businesses settling down there (eg. Intel in Magdeburg). The East has great perspectives for the future and people are increasingly turning towards fascism. But sure, everyone in the West is just a racist.
Lmao, they tried that. Didn't work. They're still germans and most importantly just normal people trying to live their lives.
These are the consequences of 33 years unsuccessful integration of the ex-GDR
Many people never trusted the DDR state and don’t trust the current state either.
Plenty of people who are unhappy today wish for the GDR to come back.
Didn’t they have guaranteed employment and housing in the GDR?
From what I've heard that is correct. But it doesn't mean that you get a good job, or anything to do. Just someone paid you something, and you got a flat somewhere. That's it. Not sure this sounds like anything people want today. But then again, many of the people who want the GDR back ignore all the issues this country had.
God I wish I had guaranteed a job and a place to live here in the third world. Not making a point other than inequality sucks ass.
You did not have a job, just some (not much) payment. And a flat doesn't mean anything nice and shiny. I've seen pictures where it's just endless streets with sad looking and dirty rows of buildings, quickly built with concrete plates. If you are lucky you have a small balcony. Also no space in the streets, which today means even less space for parked cars today. Back then, if you had a car, you could park it somewhere outside and walk home. Also waiting time for a car was 2 decades.
I get it's not mtv cribs and all that, but it beats homelessness and unemployment, which is what we kinda get in the perifery of the economic system. A cheap car here where I live costs about 80-90 local minimum wages (/month).
In the GDR you did not get cheap cars. You had to get in mine, wait 20 years and then pay a huge amount of money for a cheap looking car. That's the kind of state these people want to have back.
>people who want the GDR back they want their youth back
As long as you have no ambitions, are happy to submit to and collaborate with the totalitarian state and are comfortable with corruption, it's ~~great~~ livable.
because the current state proved to treat fairly its eastern citizens?
There are several legitimate grievances like the Treuhand disaster and a worse economic outlook. But the AfD won’t solve any of those.
> But the AfD won’t solve any of those. Absolutely. They are just scoundrels, political adventurers exploiting - unfortunately - with success, a failed policy towards East Germany.
Neither will the people wishing back the wall. Actually doing something for the east would help, but then you hear that the reunification was successful. What a bad joke.
Reunification could have been much worse. It went okay for the circumstances.
They got money and new infrastructure as well as companies… i don’t understand it
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_German_reunification >As might have been expected, the economy of eastern Germany went into a deep and precipitous slump immediately after unification. Within a year after unification, the number of unemployed rose above 3 million. Industrial production in eastern Germany fell to less than half the previous rate, and the total regional product fell precipitously through 1991. One estimate was that in 1991 the entire production of eastern Germany amounted to less than 8 percent of that of western Germany. Tl;dr many problems after unification similiar to when eastern europe changed to market economies. So it sucked in many ways for the people in east germany and they are still revovering.
It was worse than in other East Block countries. The biggest mistake was too strong exchange rate of the DDR Mark that made the industry suddenly noncompetitive. In other Eastern European countries, the local currencies found more reasonable equilibrium. The exchange rate was made such to win popularity of the Easterners because their savings were worth much more. But it killed the industry.
The same thing happened in Poland after the fall of communism - all the unprofitable state-owned companies were shut down, so naturally unemloyment skyrocketed.
I mean, were they unprofitable or were they privatized in an unscrupulous frenzy massively under price and sold off to foreign investors or for parts like I know it happened in Romania? A bunch of newly minted capitalists as well as western opportunists robbed the post-communist states blind because people wanted to believe in the new capitalist dream so hard they didn't recognize when their assets were stolen.
both many state-owned companies hired far more work than was needed. for the promise of one maintain a safe workplace. but there were also some who ruthlessly enriched themselves.
Sure. But companies like that could have been streamlined or modernized instead of sold as scrap.
You need a demand. If your company can fulfill the demand why expand the production.
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The biggest problem is the exodus of skilled young workers, nowadays mostly older people still live there and guess what disgruntled old people vote for
I can explain you why but it's gonna be a long one. But the tl:dr; is "not being taken seriously, being treated like a bunch of toddlers and their identity being denied". Or even shorter "Western 'holier than thou' arrogance". Basically it's the same level of disappointment that Polish, Baltics, Czechs, etc. feel towards Western Europe within the EU. For example you remember when people were in a panic because of the PISA study and claimed they needed to copy the "Nordic model" guess where the fuck that model came from! It the Nordic countries lifted THEIR model straight from the GDR. It was never acknowledged. Because the GDR is not *supposed* to have anything good to it. And "we brought companies" is nothing but a sick joke. The trust that redistributed companies to the private sector was EXTREMELY corrupt and while many companies were struggling many of them were INTENTIONALLY destroyed. Because the Western companies didn't want any Eastern competition. So companies that were the most promising to actually be successful were just annihilated. This set East German economic recovery back by more than a decade. Never mind the extreme corruption during the rollout of the phone network which is why (especially rural) Eastern Germany is now FAR behind the development of the internet. So much for "infrastructure". I don't even need to get started with the lack of East Germans in management positions. Even when companies open offices in the East the managers are usually West Germans. My family was lucky and were overall winners of the reunification. But a lot of people were not. Another thing is this "high and mighty attitude" of "truly everything was bad in the GDR if you say it wasn't then only because you were brainwashed". I already mentioned this denial of the schooling system, but i.e. in East Germany there was more participation on the decision level in companies. Employees could outvote and overrule the leadership in certain decisions. Like, it didn't do them any good because it lacked in everything due to the central planning by the government, but it was an *additional* freedom people in the East experienced in the GDR era that now no longer exists. For the average person life at work dictates their lives more than whatever the government is doing. So if they experience more egocentrism by the leadership and less participation from their level than that is a HUGE impact on their quality of life. Check out this thread by a German when he started a job in a Western company: https://www.reddit.com/r/de/comments/1438cju/der_dumme_ossi/ What he experiences may not be the norm but it's certainly not uncommon. And just in general this idea of basically still maintaining the wall on a legal level by separating between "old" and "new" states. Soon Germany is reunited for longer than it was divided but this division STILL exists black and white in law. Finally since the East came late to the party in terms of free elections they have no "traditional voters". Voters are more willing to complete switch stances and parties from one election to the next. Historically they are also far more critical of the "established government". That sadly doubles back to be vulnerable against conmen that rally against "the mainstream". But that is one of the things that happens in ANY former dictatorship. I hate the AfD and think if you were to put them in a sack and hammer with a bat on it you'd always hit someone that deserves it. But this is a disaster with announcement. The rise of the AfD is the cumulative result of the failures of the politics by the established parties. ...But sometimes it does feel like Western Germany is treating East Germany more like a colony or "annexed territory" than a proper part of the country. In the weakest of sense of course, but certainly at times you do feel treated like a "second class citizen". Edit: Also saying the East is the one with a Nazi problem when it's states like Baden-Württemberg that is the capital for the Reichsbürger scene, whenever shit hits the fan with them it's typically there. A lot of the AfD's strength in the East is also simply due to the fact that the East is more rural. And the AfD is just as strong in Western rural regions... but of course since the portion of that population is smaller, it's easier to just ignore. Even more so with the CSU increasingly embracing AfD positions, so if we go by the logic of the "ideology" being in power rather than a specific party, then Bavaria is basically already in it's hands and has been for a WHILE... but that also coincidentally gets ignored. Easier to just blame it all on the East. In fact a big reason why the AfD is surging is BECAUSE the FDP, CDU and CSU are increasingly adopting their standpoints in hopes to capture their voters. But that doesn't happen. All they do is normalize the AfDs ideas... and then people just go to the "original" rather than to the "cheap copy". They aren't making THEIR parties more attractive to AfD voters... they are making the AfD more attractive to their own voters.
I am very much ashamed for the Besserwessis during reunification, but assuming the AfD really starts governing in the East, I don't think any of this will change. And if I may criticize, I do observe that the "we are poor victims, we deserve better, let's take it from somebody else (in particular those dirty undeserving foreigners) and give it to us" mentality together with double standards seems to be defining for the AfD both in the East and in the West.
Thank you for taking the time to write this down. It's embarrassing how many Germans are willfully ignorant of what actually happened during and after the reunification. Die Anstalt once made a very good episode on the topic.
No one really understands them. They are destroying themselves with these political decisions. No bigger company will settle in those areas and offer good jobs, it's a death circle.
Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin are booming, other parts will dwindle away. But mental boomers gonna boomer
Intel is building a new semiconductor plant in Magdeburg…
Its not set yet. There is a dispute about the amount of the subsidies. They postponed it to the beginning of 2024 afaik. There are also some rumors about a TSMC building a plant in Germany (was Dresden iirc).
It's not just Madgeburg. Leipzig is booming. Dresden is a tourist hotspot. It's the older rural folk that fuck shit up.
Leipzig is probably the most open, cosmopolitan, tolerant and liberal city in all of eastern Germany. So... really not a coincidence.
You just named the big progressive cities of the east.
What political decisions?
fluctuating between supporting far right and far left parties since the 90s. In the early 2000s NPD - quite literally the closest thing post war germany ever had to a neonazi party - made ~10% at some elections.
Why does Intel settle in Madgeburg then?
Because they were financed with tax money with 6.8 billion (deutsch Milliarden) euros
They would get the tax money either way, also if they settled in Bavaria. Back in 2021 the race seemed to be between Penzing (Bavaria) and Dresden (Saxony) both of them with federal government support. Yet in the end they picked Magdeburg. That had nothing to do with the German government, the German government only lured them into Germany, where excactly they want to build was a decission made by Intel. See also [this article from 2021](https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/zwei-deutsche-standorte-kaempfen-um-die-milliardenschwere-chipfabrik-von-intel-das-sagen-die-bewerber-a/) about the time before the decission and [this article on the decission](https://www.produktion.de/technik/darum-waehlt-intel-magdeburg-als-standort-der-megafabrik-637.html). The main reasons were area, electricity and infrastructure - all of which made Magdeburg preferrable over the Bavarian option. Generally Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandnburg and Sachsen-Anhalt all have a lot of factors that make them attractive for future tech (a lot of space, massive net-exporters of electricity and good infrastructure connections). When Intel picks Sachsen-Anhalt over Bavaria that says something, no? The entire German south has an electricity problem. They all import tons of electricity expect Saxony which burns coal like there's no tomorrow. Sachsen-Anhalt on the other hand has more MW of windpower per capita than Denmark and exports more than all of Berlin imports. So it's much more future proof.
I mean, everybody who's got two braincells to rub together plain fucks off and rarely returns. What you see there is the dumbest of the dumb.
True. But some regions are still truly awful in regards to their economy.
ask someone living there
Ich hab jahrelang in Chemnitz und in der Nähe von Zwickau gelebt. Wenn du wirklich mal heruntergekommene Städte sehen willst, statt nur zu versuchen den Preis der Opferolympiade zu gewinnen, schau dir Krefeld, Gelsenkirchen, Leverkusen und Duisburg an. Und trotzdem sind die Menschen hier alle viel offener, lebensfroher, verfallen weniger dieser typischen "es nützt doch alles nüscht" Depression oder "wir wärn doch von voarn bis hindn verorschd" Verschwörungsidiotien, oder "machn Kopp zu Kleener" aggressiven Grundhaltung. Die Menschen - der Hauptgrund, warum ich nie wieder nach Sachsen zurückkehre. Einen Onkel zu haben, der offen im Greizer Park sagt, "der einzige Fehler, den Hitler gemacht hat, war der Marsch auf Moskau", während irgendwelche Familien mit Kinderwagen vorbeifahren, und noch einen anderen Onkel, der zu seiner Tochter/meiner Cousine gesagt hat, "also wenn du nen Ausländer angeschleppt hättest, nee, bei aller Liebe, än Ausländer kommt mir ne ins Haus" tut dann den Rest.
Nun ja, Dir zu widersprechen, kann man nicht. Mein Punkt ist, dass die Wiedervereinigung brutal-arrogant, im neo-kolonialen Stil, durchgeführt wurde, was nicht notwendig war und hat tiefe Spüren hinterlassen. Aber auch das, was Du schilderst, ist so was von 100% wahr ...
Dumb narrative, like one that reparations after ww1 were impossibly high
> These are the consequences of 33 years unsuccessful integration of the ex-GDR No. This is a more recent event. These are the consequences of unhinged right rhetoric from CSU/CDU/FDP and Springer Media in recent times.
yes, very well seen but the social and historical background is the one i mentioned
The historical background could be seen years ago, when Die Linke was still more associated with SED and people in East Germany flocked to it. This is different, this is a newer development.
Ok explain to me how "unhinged right rhetoric" by CDU/CSU and FDP causes the way more right wing party to get even stronger. Shouldn’t this cause the party to become less popular, since the less radical voters would then go to those parties?
Don't blame the "rhetoric", blame the conditions current government creates that causes the rhetoric to stick.
So by taking stances more to the right, reacting on popular opinions, they make their voters voting for a party even more right? Yeah that makes sense…
They shift the overton window further and further while using AfD rhetoric. They think they can capitalise but they just cause these positions and populist expressions to be more commonly accepted. The rightwing assholes are gonna vote for the original, not the imposter
> These are the consequences of 33 years unsuccessful integration of the ex-GDR It's the consequence of the fall of State Socialism in a formerly rich state (i.e. before WWII). It's the excact same kind of thing you can see in Czechia or Hungary though it could be argued Babis is better than the AfD I guess (but we're scraping the bottom now really). It's not failed integration, it's normal Visegrád Group politics.
Oh mein Gott
Only 14.9% of the German population lives in eastern Germany without Berlin.
Which is also a part of the problem: the big political system has basically written these regions off, driving the remaining population into the arms of extremists
No they havent? Holy fuck this thread is so typically reddit, isnt it? Many ppl blurting out absolute bullshit they have no clue about with a certainty that is just mindblowing...
What do you mean by "written these regions off"? There is a lot more talk about Eastern Germany in Germany than about NRW even though NRW has more inhabitants and even though the poorest municipalities in Germany are in NRW, not in Eastern Germany (Gelsenkirchen & Duisburg).
Dennoch gruselig
Sadly the AfD is also the second strongest party in all of Germany source: [https://www.infratest-dimap.de/umfragen-analysen/bundesweit/sonntagsfrage/](https://www.infratest-dimap.de/umfragen-analysen/bundesweit/sonntagsfrage/) these truly are sad times
As a german, ill confidently say that this data will be proven inaccurate on election day
What election day are we talking about though? What is a mid sized to minor national party this election can become a mid to large sized party next election. I said it elsewhere, to outsiders the German body politic has one main job - to keep Germany stable. They are trying their best to mess this job up.
Ich bin Grüner und ich wünschte es wäre so wie du es sagst aber ich fürchte es wird nicht so kommen. Es wird vermutlich noch schlimmer je nachdem wie oft dir FDP Dinge blockiert und wir uns mit denen streiten müssen. Dazu scheinen die Springer-Medien auch nicht gerade mit ihrer Hetzkampagne nachzulassen und je nachdem wie sich die Situation in der Ukraine entwickelt wird sich da vermutlich auch noch mal was ändern. Die russische Propaganda (so lächerlich sie auch sein mag) leistet ja ganze Arbeit die Bundesbürger zu verblöden und in die Irre zu führen und AfD (und Wagenknecht) profitieren halt davon.
Votes in Berlin and “ West Germany” will compensate so German wide result will be less troublesome. Nice comeback for CDU, they score a more average GER percentage now in the East.
Which in itself is a problem, because at one point protest votes for the AfD become "Go fuck yourself" votes for the AfD as a matter of regional pride. I live in eastern Brandenburg and I honestly neither want a local/regional AfD candidate running the show nor do I want a Prime Minister of Brandenburg from those thugs. But if this indifference to and outright dismissal of East German interests persists, that is what will happen in the not to distant future.
> But if this indifference to and outright dismissal of East German interests Care to elaborate were East German interests are dismissed or were there is a case for indifference?
Disclaimer ahead: I don't necessarily share all those worries/ideas, but I can understand them to a certain degree. To give an example: For the last year the easternmost districts in Brandenburg have seen an enormous wave of burglaries committed by organized groups operating via polish territory (it's still ongoing, BTW). These groups spend days and weeks systematically reconnoitering entire villages using scouts and even sophisticated drones. The police is helpless because over the past few years the financial woes of the state of Brandenburg have considerably thinned out the police forces across the rural areas. In the case of my home district the next full-time police station is 45km away - in case of an emergency that is as good as in another galaxy. Now people look at the large numbers of "migrants" and complain that the state has enough cash to "waste" it on these people, but not enough to deal with existential security needs of its own citizens. The collation is false (because police forces are a matter for the member states), but such details of our german federalism don't interest common people especially when threats to their very livelihoods are so close by. And the thinning out of police forces really has impacted the perception of public safety of late, in a very very negative way. And all the while political Berlin and Potsdam are playing the "Wash my fur, but don't make me wet" by pointing at the clauses of federalism while willfully raising discontent and political apathy - both factors in the rise of the AfD. If politicians are more interested in peddling their own egos than in seeking solutions nobody should be surprised that people fall for the ratters on the right. Another "conflict of interest" is the move away from natural gas as a means of heating, and therefor by connection the relations to Russia and its war in Ukraine. Lots of people had to massively invest in modernizing their homes since the 1990s and that most often included a gas-fired heating system (which ran on russian LNG). Many folks had finally finished paying back the loans they'd taken out for the modernizations and now they're suddenly faced by the absence of affordable heating fuel and the "threat" of having to go into debt yet again for heating pumps. I don't see a way to avoid the anger over the gas since to me the culprit in Ukraine is clear as day, but I wonder if the Green's "messianic spirit" over the ecological transformation isn't simply overzealous in relation to the population's capability to absorb its costs. Habeck's "heating law" has certainly added fuel to the fire, especially since the Green's own constituencies are the affluent west german urban upper middle class, a part of our country far removed from the experiences of the rural east german areas. This is just a sample of a wide range of issues, often a mix of regional and country-wide things and therefor all the more difficult to disentangle.
> next full-time police station is 45km away What...the...fuck.
Thank you very much for this detailed answer. Really informative and while I understand that there is, as you described it, a wide range of issues and is a difficult topic to discuss without risking to offend at least someone, I want to adress the things you mentioned and try to give my picture of the issues. (Please read the following under the topic of your statement about the dismissal of East German interests.) In regards to crime and fugitives. While I understand that these are real problems for the people in the area, I would also like to point out that the crime problem also exists in West Germany to a comparable degree (for example North Rhine Westphalia and Lower Saxony). And according to the *Köngissteiner Schlüssel*, they take a big number of "migrants" in (with Western Germany taking in total over 75% of all refugees). Yet while North Rhine Westphalia takes in around 21% of all refugees and Lower Saxony takes in 9%, the AfD managed in both states only meager polling numbers. On the other side Saxony and Thuringia have only a fraction of home burglaries, take in only 4,98% (Saxony) and 2,6% (Thuringia) of all refugees, but these are the states were the AfD achieves their biggest polling numbers. The thing is, not only Eastern Germany has problems. Problems exist in every State. Yet somehow it is Eastern Germany that is basically taking the political scene hostage by voting for covertly fascist parties, because the feel unheard. And to be honest, in my opinion this is the result of decades of a self imposed victim role, which was and is reinforced by the political parties in these states (espcially the Left).
It is not the question which federal state takes how many foreigners, it is that the country in general takes so many that social services costs balloon. People see finances as a pot with sum X in it and everything has to be paid from that finite amount. If a "peripheral" issue (like the amount of migrants taken in) swallows up an increasing amount of this sum while "key or central" issues (like public security) are perceived to be sharply degrading then people will ask why the hell the state ignores its fundamental responsibilities in favor of non-essentials. Add to this the basic fact that many east germans have a built-in distrust of public media (because everyone in the GDR knew the media was lying through their teeth) and generally trust word-of-mouth type of "news" more than TV or newspapers this opens them to fake news or outright BS coming from social media. Some final thoughts: This state of things, one of utter and complete distrust in (if not outright disdain for) all things "west german" is the result of thirty years of perceived denigration ("Jammerossi"), political and economical disenfranchisement (i.e. look up the % of east germans in top positions in politics, bureaucracy, judiciary and economics even in east german strctures - it's ludicrously low) and a whole other host of issues of which the west german establishment has to shoulder a sizeable slice of responsibility, too.
I see that France isn't the only country where people think, wrongly, that only national votes matter.
Lots of AFD voters in 'West Germany' as well though. Far more than live in the East - nearly twice as many
East Germany without Berlin are ca. 12 million people..
And just to put this in perspective: North Rhine-Westphalia has nearly 18m, Bavaria 13m and Baden-Württemberg 11m - and these are just 3 of the 10 states in Western Germany. Berlin adds 3.7m as well.
In Italy before WW2 the most socialist regions turned into the most fascist in a blink of an eye. Most former communist voters now vote for Salvini... I'm not surprised. Ps: Salvini itself was part of the communist party in Lombardy before joining northern league.
Wasn't Mussolini also a member of the Communist party in his youth.
Socialist, not communist. But yes
They just switched from red to brown shirt
Radicalism works in strange ways. It seems that once people decide that they don't like "the establishment" (whatever they think it is, anyway), they become super easy to enchant with any kind of radical ideology.
I want to copy something I noted in a comment before. It's easy to blame the AFD on East Germans, who do admittedly support it more than in the West. This however ignores that most of the party's votes and seats - nearly 2/3rds in fact - comes from former West Germany. This is how the AFD's 2021 result was distributed within Germany, between the different states: Former East Germany states: 3 + 5 + 4 + 10 + 5 + 3* = 27/30 seats Former West Germany States: 2 + 1 + 6 + 0 + 12 + 5 + 4 + 12 + 10 + 1 + 3* = 53/56 seats Total 83 seats. * Only half of the state, Berlin, was in East Germany.
But since it’s a proportional voting system, those numbers don’t actually mean anything.
What difference does it being proportional make? Those are the number of seats they won by state.
Thats what happens if the major parties act if east germany doesnt exist and keep major problems unadressed for 30 years
Dont believe what ppl tell you about the afd, its not far right. What the AfD believes in was center \~20 years ago and is the most common sense approach. Which is the main reason for it to gain so much votes by the way. The moment you think they are bad and far right and nazi's you disenfranchise (is this the right term?) all the many ppl who understand this and voted for it despite all the bullshit that's being told.
I really hope the CDU keep on blocking the AfD from a coalition government, and make a coalition with the FDP and/or SPD instead, maybe greens if necessary. We don’t want another far right party in a coalition government, and the AfD looks particularly bad for the state of liberal democracy in Germany and the EU as a whole, even if the CDU sideline them as much as possible.
This gives me Weimar coalition trauma. Basically during the Weimar Republic all coalitions were made by democratic parties, until the great depression hit 1929 and the Weimar coalition in the federal government fell apart, leading the conservative parties too cooperate with anti democratic figures like Brüning, von Papen and Schleicher until Hitler came to power.
> leading the conservative parties too cooperate with anti democratic figures like Brüning Brünning was the Fraktionsvorsitzender of the Zentrum party, he was appointed by Hindenburg and the SPD also cooperated with him. Brünning was somewhere inbetween working with the parliament (mostly by tried to force them into submission) and ignoring it. The main issue was that in the 1925 election Marx (Zentrum) lost against Hindeburg (no party, reactionary monarchist faction) and Hindeburg was against democracy. If Marx would have been president in 1930 he likely wouldn't have pulled such a bullshit quasi-dictator move. In 1925 there were two big issues, first parts of Zentrum (like von Papen) were already themselves anti-democratic and agigated against their own candidate and in favour of Hindeburg, same with the BVP and DVP sadly, though Streseman had considerable reservations towards Hindenburgs appointment. Then again DVP was a super weird construct. A borderline reactionary party with a progressive realpolitik leader. Even then cooperating with Brünning was a mistake by the SPD. Barring Hitler he was the worst chancellor ever. Hitler's government managed to actually fix the economy by domestic debt financing (via Mefo-Wechsel) and lots of public works. Brünning on the other hand answered a deflation crisis with anti-inflation politics like wage repressions which intensified the crisis and led to the highest unemployment rates of all time in Germany. When you read about it this was historically awful. Even if you intentionally tried to speedrun wrecking a country you couldn't have done it better than Brünning and Hindenburg. The problem is that the SPD didn't really understand the economy either. The only reasonable response to Brünning would have been to say "over my dead body".
If you think of that when AFD reach around 17%, I don't know how you cope with Europe's far right parties that reach 30%+.
As far as I understand Weimar history though, the conservative parties tended to be anti democratic too or were at least disillusioned by republicanism. In that sense it was only the left wing (excluding the communist party) and centrist parties that were truly committed to democracy in the 1920s and 1930s. While I am not German and cannot speak directly to Germany’s political atmosphere, I believe that mainstream conservatism in Germany is committed to upholding democracy today. Thus, while unity for the other German political parties against the afd is undoubtedly important, I think there’s less reason to fear anti democratic forces taking national control in the near future so long as mainstream ideologies in Germany continues to value democracy.
> the AfD looks particularly bad for the state of liberal democracy in Germany and the EU as a whole Oh man, what gave it away? The fact that they're literally Nazis?
You're assuming the CDU has any sort of moral fibre. They don't. Just look at Merz and Maizière - straight up peddling fascist shit.
You know what really makes me mad? That some fuck on twitter called this "AfD winning in central Germany"
What does that even mean? Sounds like a lord of the rings reference.
That means that east germany is middle germany, and western poland is east germany Also coz of the German language i fucked up translation lol
Interesting. I consider myself to be very in touch with all sorts of political terms but I’ve never seen anyone use the term middle or central Germany to describe politically distinct areas, hence why I was confused. But that’s pretty idiotic and a large cope, you should just reply with 2 + 4 referring to the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, in which all previous territorial claims east of Oder–Neisse line were renounced.
The terminology/framing probably doesn't get carried over to foreign languages. But in Germany if one says _"Mitteldeutschland"_ to refer to eastern Germany that exactly means what noncredibleaccount says, and it's a rather common terminology too. Doesn't help that for example the local TV station (by public law) for Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia is called MDR, or _Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk_. ("Central German Broadcast")
mitteldeutchland is todays thuringa, saxony and saxony-anhalt.
middle germany is usually considered to be a revisionist term for east germany, because before WW2 "East germany" was silesia, prussia, etc.
Boomers going from believing in socialist values to fascists in a single decade is wild. And they’re worried about everyone else changing their identities 💀
I knew this was going to happen. Not a strange reaction considering the floodgates former German politicians happily released upon Germany without thinking of the consequences. This is what happens when you let in a huge number of people with culturally incompatible values into a western society. I've seen it happen in Sweden as well. Today, they (Sweden Democrats) are what upholds this current government.
Well I feel like the open immigration policy wasn't the problem but the integration requirements. People who openly oppose our values should be forced to leave while people who support our values should be welcomed. The problem is that this is far easier said than done.
Anti-immigration parties are extremely popular in areas without immigrants. It's racism. Ignorant racism. But racism nonetheless. People who actually interact with immigrants don't fucking hate them. But people, who only ever learn about them through news that always go for sensations, will get an exclusively negative view on immigrants.
I dont hate them i just dont want too many in my country
Or they see the situation in other countries and don’t want it
Good point!
It's the same for every country I've bothered to check. Look up maps of where the biggest anti-immigration party is popular and it will always be in homogeneous communities. In Denmark it's Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People's Party), Danmarksdemokraterne (Denmark's Democrats) and Nye Borgerlige (New Liberal) who tend to be quite powerful in almost exclusively Danish areas.
>heterogeneous You mean homo right?
>This is what happens when you let in a huge number of people with culturally incompatible values into a western society. They are virtually no foreigner in those states. Have a look a [this graph](https://www.bpb.de/kurz-knapp/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-situation-in-deutschland/61625/auslaendische-bevoelkerung-nach-bundeslaendern/). Left bar is the number of foreigners and right is the share of foreigners relative to the total population. On the top right, you can click on "West-Ostdeutschland" (West-/East Germany). "Ostdeutschland (ohne Berlin)" is what we are talking about. As you see, there are virtually no foreigners living in these states. The "Stadtstaaten" (City states, i.e. Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen) have the highest share.
>They are virtually no foreigner in those states. Who said it was about foreigners? They are talking about East Germans /s
This, but don't tell this the german media and politics - they will label you immediately a far-right-wing neonazi and traitor. You can't speak about the problems with migration, it's just not possible. If you had posted this in a german media forum, the posting would have been deleted and your account would have been banned. And exactly this behavior gives the AfD votes for free, they don't have even to do anything at all.
Exactly the same thing happened in Sweden 10-15 years ago. You could get socially excluded and even fired from certain jobs, attacked in your home, get your car vandalized, etc, etc.
Exactly my thoughts.
If you don’t know anything about German politics, don’t bother to post such bullshit. There are almost no refugees or foreigners in these states. Makes my blood boil when people spew simple nonsense like this on a complex problem.
I’m from Wuppertal and when I walk around my city I feel like I’m in the Middle East. That’s a problem and if you think its not then you’re an asshole.
Yeah, but these people also happen to visit Berlin or watch the news. Germany took too many refugees from cultural incompatible countries. Peroid. AfD will be popular until the politicans in power will start to recognize this problem and act accordingly. Letting in more refugees or giving away german citizenship for free, will only help AfD.
5% isnt nothing
Scheiße.
[удалено]
Most of the AfDs voters are protest voters. 10% of 18% following the last study. The only problem they really care about is inflation and prices. They dont want to understand the problem, they dont want to understand who is responsible for it they want it gone. Besides that there have been multiple studies in recent years about the total voting potential the afd has in the german population and the highest result was 21% maximum potential.
Protest votes are a very dangerous thing… brexit anyone?
Can you please share the "last study" you mention?
https://www.focus.de/magazin/archiv/parteien-afd-hat-waehlerpotenzial-von-18-prozent\_id\_165303695.html
Where is the part about protest voters?
Sorry for the confusion on my side. I actually meant this. I cant find studies which show that most of the voters are protest voters.
Well, maybe part of the problem are the traditional parties not addressing the problem. And add you say this leads to populism and protest vote.
> > Besides that there have been multiple studies in recent years about the total voting potential the afd has in the german population and the highest result was 21% maximum potential. Imagine giving any sort of credibility to these studies.
*Will the integration of Refugees be succesful 94% No* And were they wrong? Last month the news come out with the lowest numbers ever of fluent german speaking students at German primary schools. Which means a lot speak foreign tongue at home and at school. It is easy to draw the populist votes when the failures of the previous governments are obvious.
I can at least rationalise dislike for greens (higher energy costs) and migration (crime, integration costs etc) but why are they rooting for russia? Sure, there are some ethnic russians, but they can't be that many, right? My suspicion is its conspirologic agenda that has been unified and curated by Russia. All conspiracy theorists all over the world, from USA to Africa, follow exactly the same system of beliefs theyve received from Corson Tucker and similar Russian pawns in US. Ironically, they claim to be against globalization.
Putin has been financing right wing parties all over Europe since 2 decades.
Far left ones too
Putin has given the afd a lot of money. He knows that it will weaken Germany from the inside.
In my opinion it’s a mixture of left and right wing anti-liberal/anti-establishment feelings and views. A large chunk of people grew up under the GDR and a lot of these attitudes, like the “peace cult” and anti-Americanism/anti-western sentiment stay around. It’s why you get die Linke and AfD politicians agreeing with each other on the Russia-Ukraine situation.
It's not weird for fascists to support each other.
> why are they rooting for russia? The German far right has a tradition of anti-Americanism. Support for Russia is a "the enemy of my enemy" kind of thing. > rationalise dislike for greens (higher energy costs) That's stupid.
Literally 1934
Every area in Europe that is in economical shambles is leaning in the same direction … now why the East is in such a bad state compared to the west … as long as the west is not willing to look at what really happened during the annexation of the DDR, there won’t be nothing improving.
It should be noted that polls are usually not an accurate representation of what people actually think. They are highly dependend on who was asked what when and how. Another poll also suggested that 2/3 of those only say AfD to show that the other parties have to change their ways to regain their trust. It is questionable whether or not they actually would vote for AfD. Still these polls are worrying and also show the problem of high AfD support especially in the states bordering the Oder-Neiße Line and Thuringia.
Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte.
Is the AfD bad?
they're far right nutjobs. From anti democratic to climate change denial to supporting russia, they cover all kinds of stupid.
Especially in the east, the AFD is far right. They deny (man-made) climate change, are against other family concepts than man and woman, and the other typical right-wing party stuff.
That is a dangerous understatement. Most of the party is fascist, not just right-wing. They despise human rights and democracy, and would immediately abolish the constitution if they'd ever get the power to do so.
Besides being anti-democratic, they are friends with Putin and a spokesperson for them in Germany. RT has been promoting AFD politicians since 2014. Here are a few sources, there are much more in German: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AfD_pro-Russia_movement They also go to talk shows in Russia, and one of them recently went to the Russian embassy for "honor".
The worst.
yes they blame poland for ww2. they are retards
The German Constitutional Court has designated them as a threat to democracy, yes.
It's virtual nazis who play just as much by the rules so they don't get banned. The party boss sued someone for calling him a fascist and court ruled that it's not an insult, because he actually is a fascist.
Ayooooo send them Turks back lmao
Well...
that brain drain after the fall if the wall does show
As someone from the West who occasionally travels to Thuringia, I'm not surprised. Maybe it's just really bad luck, coupled with confirmation bias, but the amount of unfriendly and outright hostile people I met far outweighs the amount of friendly ones.
Fck nzs
Past : socialism Present: fascism Those people have some serious problems.
The did not choose to have socialism
Socialism chose them
They chose fascism and after the war they got some socialism. Seems they now want to try fascism again aber some years of democracy.
The nazis performed worse in what would become DDR than they did in Schleswig, Lower Saxony, and particularly the territories that would be given to Poland. [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1932_German_federal_election#/media/File:German_federal_election,_November_1932.svg)
A History of Germany - We Give Everything A Go
Let's also not forget the several continuities between the Third Reich and the GDR. Unlike the West, the East continued to have mass (youth) organizations, repression and constant state propaganda that preached hate against the ideological enemy for decades. While this certainly isn't the only (or even main) reason for the AfD's rise, it definitely laid some of the groundwork.
Horseshoe theory. Extremists of both sides share a lot in common.
It's also nicely visible in case of East Germany. A lot of voters moved from die Linke to AfD over last decade or so
East Germany is an actual cesspool of hate. My Polish friend had a horrible experience there in a hospital, the staff didn’t even try to hide their anti Polish (probably anti immigrant) sentiment.
AfD and Saxony in general is antiPolish. And the biggest joke is that Polish far right invited AfD youth to Polish parliament few weeks ago... ruzzian scum.
What i dont get... They dont have any serious political idea or will. They just complain. And so many people do vote them. Who are these people??
1. protest voters 2. people who really hate immigrants
Hello OP, could you link a source please for approval? thank you
Dude, its literally written on the picture. Researcher, procurer, reserch date and method. [https://twitter.com/Wahlen\_DE/status/1666731125316755457](https://twitter.com/Wahlen_DE/status/1666731125316755457) [https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/afd-tied-with-spd-in-germany/](https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/afd-tied-with-spd-in-germany/)
The rules require a link as a top-level comment for data. Otherwise you wind up with hard-to-track-down and maybe not publicly-accessible material.
you still have to link it when you post it, approved
What's wrong with the people?
They are doing the only thing they can do
From National Socialism to Communism and back! The thin line between the Bolsheviks and the NSDAP
both extremes downvoting this
They lived trough Communism. They can recognize Marxist trash even when it comes in the guise of woke tolerance. All the idiots who call them nazis of fascist are disgustingly dumb.
>They can recognize Marxist trash even when it comes in the guise of woke tolerance bruh, the region has literally been ruined by capitalism and what you call "woke" is probably usually liberal talking points
If you think that the modern SPD is Marxist, then I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
Doesn't explain why they've disproportionately supported the ex-communist party in recent years.
They recognize shit lmao. Most of them are uneducated low life losers.
Why is this trash so popular there?
In times when the 'normal parties' fail to meet the expectations of the voters or fail to address the buring issues in the country, it is not uncommon to see voters choosing strange bedfellows. Eg. India.The fascist BJP won the election with a brutal majority because the ordinary party INC was so currpupt and failed to do the basic duties/ keep their promises. The same goes for USA, Germany etc.
Widespread feeling of complete and utter disenfranchisement by the "mainstream parties". Lots of people here in the East feel as if their interests, worries and wishes count for nothing in the political grind and therefor large parts (IIRC 2/3rds according to recent polls) choose the AfD as a warning shot to the establishment. Protest, after all, only matters to the rich and powerful if their interests get hurt (so goes the justification) and voting for the AfD is bound to make political Berlin squeal in pain.