20 years ago most people did not yet got hit by the economic destruction caused by the reunification.
And most western germans have no idea that this even happened. Which just accelerate the cliff between the people of the west and east.
Same with foreigners who have no idea how things came to be (not meant as insult)
And finger pointing is very easy for everyone, easier then fixing the root causes.
If you dont adress the need of the people and only care about identity politics, and your own party establishment then youll loose. As did the “Linke”.
But they are climbing in the polls again. somewhat.
A total lack of human development
Linke and AfD have quite some things in common. It even can be argued that the Linke/PDS in the 90s/2000s paved the way for the success of the AfD.
DDR was socialism, and didn’t work. They know how the left manipulates the media and how they control everything.
They see how the German public media wants to change the language, even though the majority doesn’t like it.
They see how the government wants to suppress criticism, by calling it hate speech.
So it’s normal that they don’t want left parties anymore.
Better conservative AFD than left xxx.
It’s a circle. If you go to far you immediately end up on the other side.
It’s a topic that is extremely debated.
And it’s most likely rooted in the botched reunification of Germany.
To restore, or rather ‘enable’, profitability and competetivness of East German companies the government said that they’d reimburse those who didn’t manage to survive connection to the Western / global market and give subsidies.
*But* West German hedgefunds bought East German companies, pocketed the subsidies from the state that were meant to enable necessary upgrades to enable said competetiveness on the global market, fired the staff and were then reimbursed by the government for the incured losses of the closed shops at the end. So most of the money that was intended to make east Germany prosperous actually flowed into West Germany.
The hedgefunds then didn’t bother to actually found new companies within East Germany. Old factories, companies and shops closing down and no new shops opening resulted in few option for East Germans to gain employment. Young ones moved westward and the old ones remained. The old East Germans then started to reinterpret the DDR time as better then what they have now. ‘Ostalgie’ was coined. A combination of ‘Nostalgie’ [nostalgia] and ‘Ost’ [East]. Thoughts about the repression and poor economy were sidelined by the perceived ‘better’ DDR social system and the equally poor economic situation due to the abcense of emplyoment.
Initially, this Nostalgia + the continuation of the poor economic situation only ended in people voting ‘Die Linke’ as they promised a strong social program and employment, partially overlaping in their program with what people believed they already had in the DDR and wanted back.
The disregard continued, though. Factories, potential companies and employers refused to settle in East Germany as the higher unemployment became a ‘Standortfaktor’ [Location factor, but it doesn’t sound right] that made the region unattractive. Politics didn’t intervene either. For example, in 2010’s a battery factory was planned to either settle in Heide or East Germany. The head of the comission, iirc an SPD member, opted for Heide as it was close to her constituency. But East Germany would’ve profited much more off of it.
After some time and the 2015 refugee crisis, the right gained traction. The ‘social’ state ***apparently***, not factually but perceivedly, favoured foreigners over economically disadvantaged East Germans. Populist takes of Refugees alegedly living in hotels and getting free education / work training courses, while East Germans struggled to gain emplyoment resonated with the population. Resulting in the rise of populism in East Germany.
Edit: There’s light at the end of the tunnel, though, as the government invested heavily into education programs for East Germany. In a few decades, the East might even outperform the West in terms of academia and a highly educated / capable workforce.
Edit 2: The Grammar is all over the place. Sorry. had a continous thought that I wrote down, then revisited the start halfway though. So on so forth. Apologies.
Somebody once said:
“First they were the best Nxzis, then the were the best communists, now the are the best AfD voters”.
Make of that what you will.
A people in distress will run towards the offered hand. (Jackson)
Said simply, as someone who has been around for the old and the new, but left long enough to be blindsided by the extreme change, that’s what’s happening. And not just in the East.
East Germans (not just them, but it’s huge there and more tangible), by and large, feel that “something’s not right”. They can’t put their finger on it, they can’t name it, but they can find someone or something to blame and someone or something to offer relief.
To name a few things: jobs are going tits up, medical infrastructure is missing in rural areas, everything gets more expensive (Dönerpreisbremse, wann?), everything is being mulled, nothing is being done (at least that’s how it feels), and waste and bureaucracy reign supreme.
Now to find someone to blame: “the Capitalists”, “the West”, “the Foreigners”, “the Wokes”, “the Jews”, “the Muslims”, “those Berlin Fat Cat Politicians”, “the SPD”, “the FDP”, “Spahn”, “Lauterbach”, you name it, someone will blame someone.
And to find someone to fix it. That someone was the SED, PDS, Linke, because of Ostalgie (Nostalgia for the GDR), but they effed up badly, and nothing changed anyway. Dark Germany, Dunkeldeutschland, still feels second class. Still feels like Bavaria, Berlin, BaWü (THE LÄND!!), gets more, better, everything. Then the AfD rises. Maybe they can fix it, tell us who is to blame, and then end it. Foreigners, of course, and the EU. So, let’s try that one.
why are you acting surprised that 20 years make a difference?
They’re the same picture
It’s more “anti-establishment” than any actual political direction.
If there was a party promoting the wearing of clown shoes and Elvis wigs plus telling everyone how much (the other) politicians suck, a significant portion of East Germans would be right on their way to the costume shop.
Where exactly do you see the far left?
I watched, well listened to a very interesting YouTube video on this last Friday from Simon Whistler
Wie wär’s wenn du dich Mal fragst, was zum Fick Westdeutschland! Es gibt leider genügend Menschen in Ostdeutschland die von Westdeutschen verkauft wurden. Dann gibt es duch westdeutsche Politiker genügend Korruption, was die Politikverdrossenheit stärkt. Also, wie wär’s wenn Westdeutschland sich endlich Mal darum kümmert, das die Korrupte CDU abgesägt wird. Denn diese hat in den letzten 20 Jahren genug Schaden angerichtet und genau das sieht man doch. Entweder Deutschland bekommt in der nächsten Wahl endlich Mal die Kurve und wählt endlich das was Nazis besiegen kann, eine stabile starke Regierung, oder wir werden von der braunen Scheisse überrollt! Und nein eine Groko ist der letzte Rotz, wie man aktuell wieder sieht. Schönen Gruß von einem ostdeutschen Wähler der die FCKAFD nicht wählt.
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CDU is about as “far right” as flour is spicy.
20 years ago most people did not yet got hit by the economic destruction caused by the reunification.
And most western germans have no idea that this even happened. Which just accelerate the cliff between the people of the west and east.
Same with foreigners who have no idea how things came to be (not meant as insult)
And finger pointing is very easy for everyone, easier then fixing the root causes.
If you dont adress the need of the people and only care about identity politics, and your own party establishment then youll loose. As did the “Linke”.
But they are climbing in the polls again. somewhat.
A total lack of human development
Linke and AfD have quite some things in common. It even can be argued that the Linke/PDS in the 90s/2000s paved the way for the success of the AfD.
DDR was socialism, and didn’t work. They know how the left manipulates the media and how they control everything.
They see how the German public media wants to change the language, even though the majority doesn’t like it.
They see how the government wants to suppress criticism, by calling it hate speech.
So it’s normal that they don’t want left parties anymore.
Better conservative AFD than left xxx.
It’s a circle. If you go to far you immediately end up on the other side.
It’s a topic that is extremely debated.
And it’s most likely rooted in the botched reunification of Germany.
To restore, or rather ‘enable’, profitability and competetivness of East German companies the government said that they’d reimburse those who didn’t manage to survive connection to the Western / global market and give subsidies.
*But* West German hedgefunds bought East German companies, pocketed the subsidies from the state that were meant to enable necessary upgrades to enable said competetiveness on the global market, fired the staff and were then reimbursed by the government for the incured losses of the closed shops at the end. So most of the money that was intended to make east Germany prosperous actually flowed into West Germany.
The hedgefunds then didn’t bother to actually found new companies within East Germany. Old factories, companies and shops closing down and no new shops opening resulted in few option for East Germans to gain employment. Young ones moved westward and the old ones remained. The old East Germans then started to reinterpret the DDR time as better then what they have now. ‘Ostalgie’ was coined. A combination of ‘Nostalgie’ [nostalgia] and ‘Ost’ [East]. Thoughts about the repression and poor economy were sidelined by the perceived ‘better’ DDR social system and the equally poor economic situation due to the abcense of emplyoment.
Initially, this Nostalgia + the continuation of the poor economic situation only ended in people voting ‘Die Linke’ as they promised a strong social program and employment, partially overlaping in their program with what people believed they already had in the DDR and wanted back.
The disregard continued, though. Factories, potential companies and employers refused to settle in East Germany as the higher unemployment became a ‘Standortfaktor’ [Location factor, but it doesn’t sound right] that made the region unattractive. Politics didn’t intervene either. For example, in 2010’s a battery factory was planned to either settle in Heide or East Germany. The head of the comission, iirc an SPD member, opted for Heide as it was close to her constituency. But East Germany would’ve profited much more off of it.
After some time and the 2015 refugee crisis, the right gained traction. The ‘social’ state ***apparently***, not factually but perceivedly, favoured foreigners over economically disadvantaged East Germans. Populist takes of Refugees alegedly living in hotels and getting free education / work training courses, while East Germans struggled to gain emplyoment resonated with the population. Resulting in the rise of populism in East Germany.
Edit: There’s light at the end of the tunnel, though, as the government invested heavily into education programs for East Germany. In a few decades, the East might even outperform the West in terms of academia and a highly educated / capable workforce.
Edit 2: The Grammar is all over the place. Sorry. had a continous thought that I wrote down, then revisited the start halfway though. So on so forth. Apologies.
Somebody once said:
“First they were the best Nxzis, then the were the best communists, now the are the best AfD voters”.
Make of that what you will.
A people in distress will run towards the offered hand. (Jackson)
Said simply, as someone who has been around for the old and the new, but left long enough to be blindsided by the extreme change, that’s what’s happening. And not just in the East.
East Germans (not just them, but it’s huge there and more tangible), by and large, feel that “something’s not right”. They can’t put their finger on it, they can’t name it, but they can find someone or something to blame and someone or something to offer relief.
To name a few things: jobs are going tits up, medical infrastructure is missing in rural areas, everything gets more expensive (Dönerpreisbremse, wann?), everything is being mulled, nothing is being done (at least that’s how it feels), and waste and bureaucracy reign supreme.
Now to find someone to blame: “the Capitalists”, “the West”, “the Foreigners”, “the Wokes”, “the Jews”, “the Muslims”, “those Berlin Fat Cat Politicians”, “the SPD”, “the FDP”, “Spahn”, “Lauterbach”, you name it, someone will blame someone.
And to find someone to fix it. That someone was the SED, PDS, Linke, because of Ostalgie (Nostalgia for the GDR), but they effed up badly, and nothing changed anyway. Dark Germany, Dunkeldeutschland, still feels second class. Still feels like Bavaria, Berlin, BaWü (THE LÄND!!), gets more, better, everything. Then the AfD rises. Maybe they can fix it, tell us who is to blame, and then end it. Foreigners, of course, and the EU. So, let’s try that one.
why are you acting surprised that 20 years make a difference?
They’re the same picture
It’s more “anti-establishment” than any actual political direction.
If there was a party promoting the wearing of clown shoes and Elvis wigs plus telling everyone how much (the other) politicians suck, a significant portion of East Germans would be right on their way to the costume shop.
Where exactly do you see the far left?
I watched, well listened to a very interesting YouTube video on this last Friday from Simon Whistler
Wie wär’s wenn du dich Mal fragst, was zum Fick Westdeutschland! Es gibt leider genügend Menschen in Ostdeutschland die von Westdeutschen verkauft wurden. Dann gibt es duch westdeutsche Politiker genügend Korruption, was die Politikverdrossenheit stärkt. Also, wie wär’s wenn Westdeutschland sich endlich Mal darum kümmert, das die Korrupte CDU abgesägt wird. Denn diese hat in den letzten 20 Jahren genug Schaden angerichtet und genau das sieht man doch. Entweder Deutschland bekommt in der nächsten Wahl endlich Mal die Kurve und wählt endlich das was Nazis besiegen kann, eine stabile starke Regierung, oder wir werden von der braunen Scheisse überrollt! Und nein eine Groko ist der letzte Rotz, wie man aktuell wieder sieht. Schönen Gruß von einem ostdeutschen Wähler der die FCKAFD nicht wählt.
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