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Comment by 0xDEF | Hacker News Reader

As a Danish person who has been to Eastern Germany (outside Berlin) I'm really not surprised by the rise of the AfD. It's common to see people on social media praise Germans for de-Nazification and criticize the Japanese for not confronting their past in the same way. Those people have clearly not interacted with Eastern Germans. In Eastern Germany the underlying neuroticism, persecution complex, and willingness to believe in every conspiracy theory, things that were foundational for the rise of Nazism, is very much still alive.

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I don't know why this is getting down voted.

Poster didn't say it's rampant, just that "it is very much alive."

I'm German, I live in Berlin, I regularly spend time in eastern Germany, outside Berlin. I can sadly confirm this.

Can you say more about East Germany and what is going on there for them to be open to conspiracy theories, neurotic thoughts, etc?

Disenfranchisement, after reunification they were left with little generational wealth, liberalism spiraled them deeper into a hopeless situation, no jobs, no economic future, impoverishment. Under liberalism the only alternative offered to them is the far right.

During the cold war and after, the US and anglosphere was mostly interested in the destruction of left ideology, labor unions, left parties etc. were all targeted. The right offers a safe outlet for people with those grievances, it doesn't threaten capital, so it was always allowed to linger in Germany not just in the east. It's deeply rooted in establishment and civil organizations, in university fraternities (schlagende verbindungen, the CSU etc.). The allied supported and used and bolstered far right groups all around Europe (Gladio, NSU, etc.) in their fight against socialism and people on the left. We still feel the effects to this day and state and federal police and intelligence still operate this way.

Protests in Germany you see police protecting far right groups from leftists, not the other way around. It's a necessary aspect of liberalism to allow the disenfranchised the outlet into right wing extremism.

Fascinating, thanks!

The german lands east of the river Elbe have been different from the western parts of Germany for more than a 1000 years. In the historical record you see a pretty sharp change in marriage patterns,land ownership and political structure when crossing the Elbe.

The enlightenment was less influential in the rural estates of the ultra conservative east elbian Junkernklasse than it was in the more densely populated Rhineland regions. Fukuyama has a nice chapter on the matter in “The Origins of Political Order”.

On top of that you have the separation, and the dislike of the GDR to foster critical thinking and the economic collapse of the east after reunification that lead to a lot of brain drain.

Hardly surprising, treuhand left east Germany extremely poor.

The unification wasn't exactly free. The immense costs for the most part were shouldered by western citizens through the Solidaritätszuschlag. The total price tag is estimated to be between 0.95 and 2 trillion Euro (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosten_der_deutschen_Einheit#R...).

I read this comment earlier today, and my thoughts have returned to it through the day. It is an extremely bigoted comment, that prompted further bigoted comments below it. I'm not asking for it to be removed or censored but I have come back to express just how revoltingly bigoted it is, and I think the commenter should reflect on how they got to the mindset that produces statements like this one.

It's really not. A generalization is not de facto bigotry. I wish Americans could figure this out some day.

> In Eastern Germany the underlying neuroticism, persecution complex, and willingness to believe in every conspiracy theory, things that were foundational for the rise of Nazism, is very much still alive.

The grandparent (quoted above) is generalising a population as having these negative aspects and suggesting that support for the AfD is only due to these reasons. It is a form of shallow dismissal based on bigotry. It doesn't seek to understand the population and properly why support for the AfD is rising. It's much easier (for the bigot) to write off people as having entrenched negative characteristics.

And I wouldn't normally say this but if you have a browse through the grandparent's comment history, the majority of their comments are of this ilk, including one comment about 2 months back that they received a warning from dang for.

This is completely removed from reality.

The right wing movements in Europe started around 2000 in Italy, Austria, the Netherlands and France. Germany was way behind.

In Germany the AfD won voters after Merkel let in too many refugees in 2015 against the will of many CDU voters.

The AfD is probably less extreme than MAGA and most European counterparts, including Scandinavian ones. But it is always easy to pile on Germany, isn't it?

(I don't vote for them, don't like them, but this is getting silly.)

Please you are whitewashing history. Hoyerswerda gruesst. This shit was happening already in the 90s right after reunification and in the context of OP - it’s not surprising at all, eastern germany had a very different take on denazificaiton.

Hoyerswerda was in 1991, please look at the election results:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_German_federal_election

No radical party was of any significance. If they were all Nazis, why didn't the NPD have 20%?

You are the one who rewrites history.

Because at the time that SED follow up was still binding the Nazi vote.

And it bound the "Nazi vote" from 1990 until 2015? And they still don't vote NPD in 2023?

They vote AfD because the traditional parties have failed them and keep doubling down. The AfD would probably also fail them if in power, but that is the nature of protest votes.

Same story in France where Le Pen is currently leading the polls.

"eastern germany had a very different take on denazificaiton."

As opposed to the BRD, where for example the "Auswärtiges Amt" had more ex NSDAP party members after 1945 than before?

There definitely was denazification in the east, but the totalitarian enclosed and literally walled of mindset did not help with creating an open mind towards the world. Add to that high unemployment and poverty after 1990 and you get the usual extremists on both sides of the spectrum.

You will notice I did not say Western Germany was great at it. Different.

I noticed, but in the context it seems to imply a worse take.

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