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The Rise of Neo-Nazi Far Right in Former East Germany

JupiterKid

I have a good acquaintance who is German - I used to work with her many years back in academia. She is originally from Bavaria, in her early 40s, and is married to a Slovakian chap and they have two young children.

After she moved back to Germany, she lived with her then partner near Cologne and then was offered - and took - a good position at the university in Leipzig in the former East of the country. She has told me that it has been a culture shock for her, as a German growing up in the former West to settle near Leipzig where her neighbours hold very right wing views and the undercurrent of tacit support for neo-Nazi groups and political parties is alarmingly strong.

Last year her husband was spat at in a local supermarket and told to “go home and leave here, you are not welcome as a foreigner” and they have had their rubbish bins overturned at night and their car daubed in xenophobic slogans. Also she has told me that many of her neighbours are avid anti-vaccine/Covid conspiracy theory followers. We do know that Covid vaccine uptake has been much slower in Germany than many other European countries, which I had found surprising given how organised, compliant and efficient I believe Germans to be.

It has got to the stage where she is now planning to leave Leipzig and her good job to move back West to Nordrhein-Westphalia where she had not encountered this hostility. Here is a recent story on the rise of the far right in the former East:

https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/east-german-state-in-crisis-after-accusations-of-neo-nazi-sympathies/

It has been known for many years now that neo-Nazi and far-right political sympathies are far, far stronger in the former East (GDR) outside of liberal, cosmopolitan Berlin - and indeed garner a disquieting level of support in some parts of the former East.

I don’t really know the reason for that dichotomy, but I would suspect it has to to with the way the GDR was run as a totalitarian state that replaced Nazism with Communism, the presence of the Stasi secret police and informants network, the lack of former East Germans being exposed to Western cosmopolitan influences in the post-war era including non-white immigration and the subsequent drastic economic restructuring following reunification of Germany in 1990 leading to mass unemployment and growing disillusionment and therefore resentment and bewilderment at the rapid changes to their former way of life that had essentially been frozen for 45 years.

So anyone else have any ideas as to why there is a growing neo-Nazi threat in the former GDR? My German friend has seen it first hand and is leaving in order to protect her family.

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generic_throwaway

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118544828#Comment_118544828

That's curious: the gastarbeiter from Turkey would have been purely a West German phenomenon. The low-skilled immigrants that you refer to in the East - apparently flocking to areas of high unemployment, oddly enough - would presumably be people from the EU accession countries and possibly some Croats who moved during the Yugoslav conflict - folks who you would think would slot into German society as easily as our Polish immigrant population do in this country.

cannonballTaffyOjones

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118545817#Comment_118545817

Nope, but I know the definition of the "far right" has lost all meaning, basically anyone mildly conservative nowadays is smeared as Hitler ...

Ridiculous hyperbolic nonsense.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118545951#Comment_118545951

Sorry, I didn't mean to blur the types of immigration. East Germany mostly attracted the migrants from Eastern Europe/Balkans/Baltic, whereas the Turks and others were mostly related to West Germany. Merely meant that many Germans have issues with immigration. [Also a lot of the initial immigration into East Germany moved to the West over time due to the desire for better conditions and the hostility received from the native populations in the East)

generic_throwaway

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118546091#Comment_118546091

Look at these mild conservatives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P54sP0Nlngg

Glock17

All of East Europe is racist....

I think they look at multicultural countries like France and the UK and decided not to go down the same path....

mzungu

There are a myriad of reasons, but a lot of it comes from the social, economic and political factors at play. A good few of those have been covered already so no need to go into them.

In times of economic hardship support for these groups will swell, and the policy of keeping East Germany ethnically homogenous has not helped matters. However, it would be wrong to view the rise of these groups as a recent phenomenon. Even before the wall came down, some East German football teams had a significant skinhead following. After the collapse of communism, you had the Rostock riots, the NSU etc.

After the '08 crash, Germany, like most other European nations, saw a rise in popularity for these groups. What was described by the OP seems to be a continuation of a long standing social problem that German politicians are struggling to deal with.

The best way to tackle these problems is by sorting out the economic issues. High unemployment and lack of opportunities allow it to gain a foothold.

JupiterKid

Really good discussion on this thread and thanks to all who contributed. 👍👍

Yep, it does seem that being frozen for 40+ years under Communism and then exposed to a massive economic shock after the fall of the Berlin Wall which led to mass unemployment definitely fed into the rise of neo-Nazi sympathies in the former East Germany. It is something that took my German friend by surprise when she and her family relocated from Cologne to Leipzig (although she was aware before she moved of the East having much more support for the far-right) - it was the level and depth of that support that shocked her - and with her family being intimidated she is moving back west.

I wonder if any German posters here (and I know we have a few here) can shed any more light on the issue, maybe from personal experience?

Mac_Lad71

Don't know if its been mentioned but there is a phenomenon in the former GDR known as 'ostnostalgie' which is basically a longing to go back to the way things were under the communists where everyone was guaranteed a job, housing and a pension.

Uniting with the capitalist West Germany was not as widely supported as was presumed and has not turned out well for everybody in the East.

The populist far-right AfD have most of their support in the former East Germany which is an indication of a desire to replace left-wing totalitarianism with right-wing authoritarianism.

The difference being that left-wing communists see the economic, political and academic elites as being not of the 'people' whereas the xenophobic right wing AfD also see the threat to the 'people' as coming from foreigners and immigrants.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118548225#Comment_118548225

The best way to tackle these problems is by sorting out the economic issues. High unemployment and lack of opportunities allow it to gain a foothold

They've already got a foothold in most continental European nations. Anyway, just dealing with the economic considerations won't be enough, because regardless of how successful a nation is, there are always going to be a poor segment, or the working class segment, who believe themselves to be hard-done by (whether real or imagined). Wealth distribution, inequalities, and power distributions are emphasized in European nations, due to historical/traditional class divisions, which are reinforced in modern times due to the widespread access to higher education. People aren't ignorant anymore, and the internet ensures access to find out who the elite are in any country, and just how much influence they actually have.

The other problem is that democracy has become rather shaky with many people becoming disillusioned with the system. Corruption is a serious concern in a variety of western nations, as is the influence that lobby groups or the wealthy have over governance. There's also concerns about whether political parties, most of which were socialist leaning, have the interests of the electorate at heart, or whether they're following their own agendas.

There's a lot of anger in Europe right now, and it's not simply about economics. It's not even just about immigration. It's a culmination of decades of issues which have been allowed to slide to the next election, and the next, and the next... issues that affect common people, but are generally ignored, or just enough money is allocated to maintain the status quo, without actually resolving the problems.

The simple truth is that the far right appeals to many people because they are not represented by the mainstream parties who have failed many of the electorate. The other problem is that in many nations there's no real alternative to the mainstream/traditional parties or the far right.. so people are choosing the far right as an alternative option. It's a lot like the way many people in Ireland chose to support SF, simply because there weren't any other options.

The Far right groups are a result of decades of mismanagement by governments in a democratic system. The response to political efforts to weaken the power of the electorate but also a response to the growth of government regulation, and also the way the cost of living has increased so much, often without a return on service quality. Europe is rather expensive, and many people are wondering why governments are spending so much on things that don't truly benefit the native populations.

Lastly, the far right gives the impression of strong leadership.. it's probably not true, but people tend to associate them with powerful speakers, and authoritarian leadership styles, which appeals to many people... considering just how weak-willed we see many of our own leaders from other parties. That's especially true in nations with a historical connection with such leadership styles.

I wouldn't support the far right groups myself, but I can understand why they're gaining so much support.

Brussels Sprout

I saw this news last night and thought of this thread: The leader and co-chair of the AfD is quitting the party citing the far-right of the party as the main reason. This would make him the third leader in a row to quit for this reason.

The 60-year-old said that he was dissatisfied with the right flank of the party and felt that the AfD's "democratic foundations" were not solid.

"The party's heart is beating very far to the right today, and permanently at an elevated rate," Meuthen said. "I do see quite clear totalitarian echoes there."

.....

Meuthen has long been at odds with much of the rest of the AfD and had, over the past two years, repeatedly argued for his party to take a more moderate course.

In doing so, he made enemies, especially in the far-right movement around the central state of Thuringia's leader Björn Höcke.

.....

In his interview with public broadcaster ARD, Meuthen also complained that the AfD had become something of a cult in its politics around the COVID-19 pandemic.

Germany has seen widespread protests in opposition to the government handling of the health emergency over the past 18 months, which intelligence agencies have said were driven by the far-right.

link

Thuringia was formerly in the GDR.

Black Noel

As some posters point out, if you label ppl neo-Nazi you just end up alienating them rather than forcing them to accept your philosophy.

The elite want to ignore the marginalised and spend their lives on the gravy train, so they shouldn't be surprised when they end up with Nice1, Lisbon1, Brexit and President Trump etc...

TomTomTim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118554142#Comment_118554142

Pretty much. The elite create a policy which affects peoples quality of life, the people react to that, and the reactors are labelled as a danger to society for pointing to a problem that the elite have created. Obviously Nazism is the wrong response, but people do all sorts of crazy things when desperation sets in.

XVII

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118547051#Comment_118547051

Hundreds of white nationalists, alt-righters, and neo-Nazis traveled to Charlottesville, Virginia to participate in the “Unite the Right” rally. By the next evening three people were dead – one protester, and two police officers – and many more injured.

typical US, completely fucked up as always.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118554142#Comment_118554142

If people's hatred of foreigners is so extreme that they effectively run a couple out of town because one of them is a foreigner, then I don't think the labelling of them as Neo-Nazis is the real problem here.

[Deleted User]

Is it just concerning you regarding Germany? All of Europe, and now even Canada seems to be rife with the far right.

TomTomTim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118554603#Comment_118554603

Rife? Really? How have we not seen this manifest itself into political power and policies then? Unless you mean "far right" and not the actual far right, even then it isn't rife by any means. Most Western nations are governed by Neo Liberal politicians for the most part, which is something that's actually rife. Canada is an odd mention, as personally I'd grade them as likely having one of the lowest amount of "far right" minded people. A few Buzzfeed/Vice/CNN articles on the topic doesn't make something widespread.

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118552717#Comment_118552717

"The Far right groups are a result of decades of mismanagement by governments in a democratic system. The response to political efforts to weaken the power of the electorate but also a response to the growth of government regulation, and also the way the cost of living has increased so much, often without a return on service quality. Europe is rather expensive, and many people are wondering why governments are spending so much on things that don't truly benefit the native populations."

One of the best comments posted on this site for a long long time.

I pick out two horrendous comments by former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern...

"We are no longer a low-cost economy" Ahern says manufacturing firms must be more innovative (irishexaminer.com)

"I don't know how people who engage in that don't commit suicide" Ahern apologises for suicide remark (rte.ie)

...and it sums up the dismissive attitudes prevalent amongst our political class when it comes to issues, or at least it did. Concerns were dismissed - but fast forward a decade and a half and these concerns are now targets for accusations of "far-right", "alt-right", "nazism" and basically any other common slur bandied about. When you dismiss concerns and then turn on the people for having concerns, don't be surprised when they revolt.

Anyone who dares to point out that rapid increases of population through inward migration is putting upward pressure on supply of housing, public services and welfare programmes and downward pressure on wages is targets for accusations of the above.

Today we have a high cost economy that damages our competitiveness and we have ran through a woeful financial recession and on course for another. Yet Ahern callously dismissed those who sounded warnings, but he don't give a rats ar$e now that he's on a massive ministerial pension.

Black Noel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118554579#Comment_118554579

Yeh, that was quite a tale.

I'm not sure i believe it, it was very mixed up.

Black Noel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118554480#Comment_118554480

Seems to have quietened down a lot in Charlottesville. How did the cops die?

Black Noel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118554675#Comment_118554675

Yeh, country gentleman went full chicken little there 😆

c.p.w.g.w

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118544272#Comment_118544272

Well if you won't have an open discussion with some people who have opposing views it can push them in echo chamber's where theirs views cam become more extreme...

The whole black or white positioning is causing a whole lot of issues, it is possible to have opinions/positions on different topics and span the right/left spectrum

JupiterKid

Was just reading up about the Rostock-Lichtenhagen race riots of 1992 in the former GDR. It seems the because the German federal government and the state authorities at the time effectively ignored the appalling conditions in which the the Roma immigrants/refugees were kept and the growing concerns of local residents about the situation, this was a lit fuse to a keg of explosives.

Scary stuff indeed...

Link:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rostock-Lichtenhagen_riots

Fred Cryton

The trauma East Germany has been through since 1945 is simply staggering and certainly unmatched in the Western World.

Because it is the heart of historic Prussia, the military was seen as a very noble career. This meant that almost all families sent their sons to battle in WW2, and the losses were staggering. In 1945 there were 1.6 females resident for every male between the age of 18 and 45. Millions died in Soviet POW camps, those who returned were permanently scarred. Then East Germany had to absorb about 2 million starving and penniless refugee Germans from the confiscated lands to the East.

Then you have 45 years of brutal communism where everyone lost whatever private savings or capital they had and many were forced to work in back breaking uranium mines. Years of neighbours syping on you and propaganda from the government.

So we probably need to be a little understanding here. If any country ever truly "lost" a war, it was East Germany. It's a mute point anyway as the East Germans will be almost extinct by 2100 due to very low fertility rates.

[Deleted User]

Feel sorry for OP friends,noone should be forced out from their home

But poverty,nor immigration is the cause of rise of nazism...theres any amount of poor people who are never inticed into it,there are any amount of neighbourhoods with large immigrant communities who never have it about either

Its taught at home,and passed down through families for generations,to view emselves as better/above others.....it only shows/spikes in poorer/more disadvantaged communities as they have nothing/less to lose by having their inherent bigotry shown......plenty of wealthy people hold utterly horrible beliefs too

Imo reason its spiking in germany is that it has had up until recently the same government with a generation and now theres a groundswell of people whom arent represented politically

Mad_maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118544784#Comment_118544784

Munich might not suit you , its probably the most conservative city in all of Germany, Berlin probably a better fit for a man of the left

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118555304#Comment_118555304

That's certainly possible, but as with all movements there are layers regarding the support of the people involved. Of course there are the hardliners, which is what most of us think when we consider the neo-nazi's, but there's also going to be fringe elements, which are likely to share some viewpoints, or have sympathies with some agendas but not support the entirety of the movement.

I think the point is that many people will associate with these groups because they don't believe there are any better options. They're not neo-nazi's themselves, or even far right, but have been pushed in that direction by the intolerance of many leftist groups.

generic_throwaway

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118555304#Comment_118555304

I agree on the echo chamber point, but I feel (without concrete proof) that it's hard to force someone into an extreme position if they do not have an inclination towards that position in the first place. Like, you can try all you like but you're not going to turn me into a fanatical Muslim by labelling me that way.

MarkEadie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118556760#Comment_118556760

Yeah it's just scumbags being scumbags. You have to expect the people who are closet Nazis themselves to symphatise with Nazism. They are and will always be firmly in the minority and seen as lowlife scum by society.

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118543837#Comment_118543837

You have to love the lumping into one group of all whom the OP hates.

The lifting of the government restrictions last week now means he/she has to share the restaurant and bar with Ireland's factions of neo-nazis

c.p.w.g.w

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118556760#Comment_118556760

Apparently it's very easy to move people along the spectrum if they are bombarded with a singular point of view...there is also an element of entrenchment as there is no room for any nuance on any position weather it's on the right or left...which is strange as the left were historically very open to discussion and nuance, but that doesn't seem to be the case as much...

I was recently shouted down as anti Vax eight winger, because I opposed the idea of mandatory vaccines, double Vaxxed myself and managed to convince my mother to get the vaccine...but don't agree with people being forced to get a vaccine...but this got me labeled as a right wing anti-vaxxer...really strange right winger, as I campaigned in favour of equal marriage and repeal the 8th...