Current Affairs German far right in the former East Germany

[davek]

What are we to make of the strides forward at the polls in Thuringia and Saxony of the Alternative für Deutschland?

Also the progress of the new left party: the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (a party formed from a split in Die Linke).

The old East German regions have never felt part of the unified Germany and they're political culture is threatening to become distinct from it.

Who knows, in time maybe they'll go their own way again...

Scholz urges German parties to exclude far right as AfD poised for state election victory

Alternative für Deutschland leader speaks of ‘historic success’ of top place in Thuringia and second in Saxony

www.theguardian.com

 

[PKwalnuts]

Wurst

 

[FrenchDarrenBent]

My grandad might be right after all.
'They're troublemakers. You'll see, they'll be back'

 

[davek]

My grandad might be right after all.
'They're troublemakers. You'll see, they'll be back'

Wurst

 

[davek]

I cant believe a thread about Thuringian/Saxon politics hasn't taken off.

 

[peteblue]

I cant believe a thread about Thuringian/Saxon politics hasn't taken off.

Should have thrown in a picture of a fridge or something…..

 

[davek]

Should have thrown in a picture of a fridge or something…..

This might get it going...

 

[Xizor]

Only one man can save Germany now.

 

[Alan Whittle]

This might get it going...

Junkers!

 

[Taifi gorm]

Prefer the German All-righyt party.

 

[Eggs]

…I’d guess the growing popularity of far right politics is largely because of immigration.

 

[davek]

…I’d guess the growing popularity of far right politics is largely because of immigration.

In the east it's a major issue (alongside the perception that they remain a part of Germany that's continually overlooked in terms of investment and have poorer standards of living than west Germans).

Even the new breakaway from the left wing Die Linke - the SWA - have taken up a fairly hostile stance on immigration...and been rewarded.

 

[longers]

…I’d guess the growing popularity of far right politics is largely because of immigration.

overwhelmingly so

 

[brieverton]

I used to work with a few East Germans, who all grew up in the GDR.

By and large, there was a mix of some nostalgia for the old days and a feeling of being second class citizens in the unified Germany.

Right from the beginning, it was felt that the state agency created to appropriate GDR assets into a unified German economy, did so very unfairly against the East.

The birth rate in the east is less than the other parts of Germany and the population older. There is still very much a nagging sense of disparity and arrested development.

 

[davek]

I used to work with a few East Germans, who all grew up in the GDR.

By and large, there was a mix of some nostalgia for the old days and a feeling of being second class citizens in the unified Germany.

Right from the beginning, it was felt that the state agency created to appropriate GDR assets into a unified German economy, did so very unfairly against the East.

The birth rate in the east is less than the other parts of Germany and the population older. There is still very much a nagging sense of disparity and arrested development.

It wasn't so much a reunification as a colonisation of the old GDR territory. Some East German companies were more than functioning entities and they had a great reputation in the world beyond even the old Soviet world. They were either shut down or asset stripped, and there's a lingering resentment.

There's a big difference east and west in terms of attitude to Ukraine too. By and large there's not the same kind of hostility against Russia that exists in the west. Maybe a hangover from former ties to the East German state.

Something's awoken in the east politically and the Federal German state will be very nervous going into next years elections.