A far-right party’s victory in a German state is reviving memories of the country’s dark past.
In the eastern state of Thuringia, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party received one-third of the vote. And it picked up 30 percent of the tally in Saxony, also in eastern Germany. It is the strongest showing by a German far-right party in a free election since 1932 when the Nazis won one-third of the national vote. Adolf Hitler then became chancellor—and soon absolute dictator.
This year, Germany celebrates 75 years of stable democratic rule. Is that stability now threatened? Perhaps, but hopefully not. Thuringia has a population of 2 million, and Saxony has 4 million people, among Germany’s 84 million total. Together, they make up 7 percent of Germany’s citizenry.
Eastern Germany, with 16 million people, is distinct from the rest of the country. Its democratic experience dates only from the fall of communism in 1989. It is less prosperous. And it is also much more secular. A survey in 2012 found that more than half of Germans in the east are atheists (compared to 10 percent in western Germany), making it one of the most unreligious places in the world. Most people in western Germany still retain nominal Christian affiliation.
Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of the reunified Federal Republic of Germany, was a devout Catholic and Christian Democrat. He privately derided eastern Germany as never fully Christian since it was not Christianized until the 13th century by the Teutonic Knights. The Protestant Reformation began in 1517 with Martin Luther in eastern Germany. In the 2012 survey, 25 percent of eastern Germans identified as religious, and 21 percent identified as Protestant. In 2022, only 15 percent of eastern Germans were Protestant.
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Comment by Tim Ware on September 5, 2024 at 10:08 pm
Many years ago, on a visit to Dresden, not many years after reunification, someone had a large banner hanging from a window that said, “War is the rich man’s terrorism. Terrorism is the poor man’s war.” Pretty profound.
On another visit, several years later, during one of our bombing campaigns in Afghanistan, a large TV in the train station showed Afghans fleeing American bombs with their ox carts. A man standing nearby commented, “America is once again littering the world with its bombs.”
Maybe what we’re seeing is a rejection of the moral decadence of the West, sick of the LGBTQ agenda, diversity, and multiculturalism, uncontrolled immigration, nonstop wars, and “Christians” cheering genocide.
Maybe what we’re seeing is a rejection of American and British dominance, looking East instead of West.
Comment by MikeB on September 5, 2024 at 11:44 pm
TimW
The Germans don’t want Russians anywhere near them, they only look east in loathing.
Comment by Douglas E Ehrhardt on September 6, 2024 at 4:07 am
Ya think maybe just maybe the Germans are very sick of the invasion from the Third World.
Comment by Tim on September 6, 2024 at 5:59 am
I agree with Mike here. It’s kind of laughable to hear about the moral decline of the West and then hear nice things about Russia.
The East German problem has been feared since at least the fall of the Berlin wall and probably before. How do you integrate a failed centrally planned economy into a rich capitalist society? At the end of the day the western part of the country had the money, and therefore the power in a unified Germany. It probably would have been better to keep East Germany a separate state for a few years so it could transform like its Eastern Block peers and enter unification more as an equal. But there was no appetite for that at the time
Comment by David on September 6, 2024 at 8:54 am
Many of the industries in East Germany were kept alive by the communist government. Once that fell, these were unable to compete with those of the West.
I traveled to Berlin by train during the days of the wall. Crossing into the East was memorable. A swath of bare soil, perhaps half a mile wide had been created to reveal escapees. Everything beyond the heavily guarded border seemed gray. The only bright spots were the walled enclosures where trains were inspected with mirrors on wagons and multiple searches made of cars and luggage.
Germans are indeed fearful of losing their culture with the influx of immigrants. I detected unease with the many Turks that had settled in Germany. This began as a “guest workers” program to provide a workforce that had been much reduced by wartime deaths. The native German population continues to decline.
The US has always had immigrants and arguably does not have a culture to lose. We also have areas that have suffered deindustrialization and high unemployment where similar right-wing politics hold sway. It is interesting to note that, unlike East Germany, these areas tend to be more religious than the rest of the country.
Comment by Gary Bebop on September 6, 2024 at 12:35 pm
Comments by Tim Ware show insight that others do not have because their views are beclouded by the Western media narrative. Go see what Hungary says about elections in Eastern Europe. Hungarians do not echo the paradigmatic caricatures common in Western media. That’s not the way Hungarians view their neighbors.
Comment by Dan W on September 6, 2024 at 7:14 pm
I assume the man from Dresden, Tim Ware mentioned, was German. The gentleman must have forgotten that the Luftwaffe began littering Europe with bombs, long before the 8th Air Force arrived.
Comment by George on September 7, 2024 at 5:04 pm
Ok Gary, don’t throw any more of those 4 bit words out there again. I love reading everyone’s two cents worth but “paradigmatic “? Really? After looking up the meaning I’m still wondering what you meant. Please pardon my ignorance, it’s my feeble attempt at humor.
Comment by David Gingrich on September 13, 2024 at 7:20 am
This article told me nothing about what might specifically be wrong with this party other than that it is “far right”.
Comment by George on September 14, 2024 at 2:05 pm
I hear what you’re saying about “specifics” and I too would like to hear exactly what it is that the AfD has said or done other than being far right. Have they attacked the Jewish students at a high dollar university, like Columbia in NYC ? Has the AfD been so radical that they threaten and used violence against those of the other political thought in Germany? What are they guilty of other than wanting their German culture to survive
and not to be overwhelmed by immigrants much like those coming across OUR southern boarder. Merkel was trying to ease the guilt that another generation was responsible of.
Here in the U.S., Democrats are just trying to add to their ranks.
Comment by Randy on September 16, 2024 at 12:09 pm
I think it’s a stretch to attribute the higher level of far-right sentiment in eastern Germany to secularism. The areas that were part of the DDR remain much poorer than those in the former West Germany. Economic struggles tend to lead people toward political extremes. It’s not coincidental that Hitler’s rise coincided with the economic upheaval caused by the Great Depression. We have seen the same phenomenon in this country. Areas that have been left behind amid the upheaval of a globalized economy are more likely to embrace populism and even radicalism, and to look for scapegoats in the form of immigrants (who are not in fact taking jobs that Americans would otherwise fill).
Incidentally, I’d ascribe the Ost-Zone’s secularism much more to 45 years of anti-religious communist rule than to the fact that the Teutonic Knights didn’t forcibly impose Christianity on them until the 13th century.
Comment by Salvatore Anthony Luiso on September 18, 2024 at 11:24 am
Thank you for this article. Three comments:
1. For those who want to know what is wrong with the AfD: If you read the entire article, you will read that this party is “anti-American and pro-Russian”. To be “anti-American” does not mean merely to be critical of America or American culture. One can be a critic of America and yet pro-American–in fact, one could argue one cannot be pro-American without also being a critic of America.
Nowadays, to be pro-Russian is to be pro-Putin. That’s perverse–especially for people who live in what was once East Germany, which was once occupied and oppressed by Russians, including Putin the KGB agent himself.
2. I think one of the reasons why Angela Merkel welcomed so many refugees might be that Germany’s birthrate was unsustainable. For decades it was below two children per woman–and it still is.
2. As I read the paragraph that says Christianity in East Germany “never recovered” from its subversion and repression by Nazism and communism, I thought about how in other times and places, Christianity has grown under persecution. This prompts the question: Why did it grow in those other times and places, but not in East Germany?