Why eastern Germany became a stronghold of support for the AfD
In Germany, ahead of Sunday’s election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is expected to achieve a significant result. The party opposes immigration and supports closer relations with Moscow, and hopes to come to power at the state level. As The Local Germany reports, citing AFP, this would be the first time a far-right party has come to power in one of Germany’s states in the country’s post-war history.
Economic differences
Germany’s Federal Government Commissioner for Eastern Germany, Elisabeth Kaiser, who is from Thuringia, links the region’s political sentiments to the consequences of the country’s reunification. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many state-owned enterprises in the GDR closed, causing mass unemployment and an outflow of people, especially young women.
According to Kaiser, the experience of loss and devaluation has remained in eastern Germans’ collective memory. Decades later, average wages and savings in the east remain lower than in the west, while large companies are predominantly based in the western part of the country. Eastern Germans, who make up one-fifth of the population, are also underrepresented in politics.
Kaiser noted that investments worth billions in infrastructure and the economy have yielded results: industries that she called the industries of the future are developing in the region. At the same time, in her assessment, significant differences in prosperity persist, as does a sense among eastern residents that they are being overlooked.
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Migration, nostalgia and Russia
The AfD’s anti-migration rhetoric resonates in eastern Germany, although the share of people born abroad there is lower than in the west. Guest workers were employed in post-war West Germany, while the GDR recruited contract workers from socialist countries, including Vietnam and Mozambique. According to Kaiser, these workers were mostly physically separated from local residents, and their contracts were limited in time.
She also mentioned racism, xenophobia and right-wing extremism that manifested themselves in attacks on foreigners in the 1990s. Recently, in her assessment, discontent has been spreading over Syrian and Afghan asylum seekers and perceptions of the assistance they receive.
Kaiser also drew attention to “Ostalgie” — nostalgia for the GDR, whose emotionally charged symbols, she said, are used by populists. The AfD calls for rapprochement with Russia, an aggressor state, despite its invasion of Ukraine and hybrid attacks for which Berlin holds Moscow responsible. In Kaiser’s view, some eastern Germans retain anti-American sentiments, skepticism toward the transatlantic alliance, a desire to restore diplomatic contacts with Russia, and fear of provoking it.
