Three states in former East Germany face elections in September, with the far-right Alternative für Deutschland leading polls. The party is exploiting voter discontent with the fallout of reunification — and the Left’s lack of a convincing alternative.
Election campaign billboards of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which reads: “Summer, Sun, Remigration,” in reference to the mass deportation of immigrants, and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which reads: “Good pensions instead of old-age poverty” hang from a lamppost on August 27, 2024, near Jena, Germany. (Sean Gallup / Getty Images)
The specter that once haunted West Germany was exorcized some thirty-five years ago as the breach in the Berlin Wall opened the way to reunification. This eradicated the specter’s spookiest haunting grounds — the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) — and nailed it into what was hoped to be a shatterproof, Krupp-steel coffin.
In 1989, this joyous victory was marked with fireworks over Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, a moving mass rendition of “Deutschland Über Alles,” good beer, and juicy bockwurst. We can expect similar celebrations on this year’s anniversary.
But it now seems that Germany is facing a new and very different specter, again coming from the East. This time, Germans are talking about the danger of fascism.
Two states in former GDR territory, Thuringia and Saxony, face elections on September 1, followed by Brandenburg on September 22. In all three, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) tops the polls.
Three questions occupy columns and talk shows. How fascist is the AfD? Should it be totally ostracized or even outlawed? And how did the AfD, already in second place in national polls (on 19 percent), take first place (around 30 percent support) in the same Eastern areas that, under Communist rule, were most volubly anti-fascist?
After Socialism
To some folk — most prominently Donald Trump but also German pundits and politicians — “communist,” “socialist,” “fascist,” and “totalitarian” all mean the same thing. Who knows or cares about their polarizing differences? In Washington, they are all “un-American” and equally evil. In Germany, they all “reject Germany’s freedom-loving, democratic Basic Law” (the state still has no regular constitution). If they’re all the same, why bother to inquire further?
When East Germany was reunited with (or “annexed” to) the West, millions wondered what freedom and democracy would bring. Many were happy to be rid of the constant preaching about socialism to which they had been subjected for forty years. More important, they were happy to see — not just on TV screens but on sale — all those modern fashions, gadgets, cars, and imported fruits and vegetables. They had the chance to travel anywhere. About a third — those with easily adaptable trades and jobs, or quickly acquired new ones — got along much better than before. Even if largely uninterested in religion, they still tend to vote for the Christian Democrats (CDU).
But millions had a tougher time. They were the people whose workplaces were shuttered, often leaving them jobless. Administration, education, even research, journalism at every level of print, radio, TV — all this was seized and soon run by West Germans. Often, these latter had been second- and third-stringers at home but now became a privileged class ruling a new Eastern roost.
After 1990, countless small, one-factory towns were left with shattered windows and bare work halls, emptied of the last machinery of value.
This meant not just an end to public ownership, but the abandonment of most factories themselves, except where lower wages and worse conditions (but high skills) made a few of them lucrative as subsidiaries of Western monopolies. One example: a company that had supplied the GDR and much of the Eastern Bloc with refrigerators was on the brink of enforced bankruptcy when its last engineer and an enthusiast from Greenpeace developed a new form of fridge, free of the newly forbidden ozone-destroying FCKW gas. The area’s one rare industrial center could thus be saved! But then the three main Western monopolies, smelling new profits, ganged up to undercut and destroy this budding competitor — and any hope for jobs locally. Countless small, one-factory towns were left with shattered windows and bare work halls, emptied of the last machinery of value.
Supermarkets, taken over by Western chains, then sold Western products, undercutting and, where possible, destroying the GDR’s successful cooperative farm system. In early 1990, almost a million people were employed in GDR agriculture. By 2007, their number had dropped to 150,000. Farm villages rarely had even small-scale industry to employ the onetime farmers.
The co-op farms had usually been the centers for most village social life, with their kindergartens, libraries, bands, and festivities. Many farmers tried to maintain the co-ops in some semiprivatized compromise form. Such attempts were largely penalized by all-German laws or suffocated by invading giants, often with giant hog, poultry, and cattle factories. Former coworkers often became involved in angry disputes over redividing once commonly held hectare ownership.
Like the small towns, ever more villages emptied out, with the newly jobless leaving in droves to find work in West German Bavaria and Schleswig-Holstein — and even in Austria and Switzerland. Young women, first to be pushed out of former farming jobs, were generally quicker to risk moving westward than their often mama-spoiled brothers.
Over the next couple of decades, the economy settled down to a degree. Some major corporations set up outposts in Eastern cities like Dresden, Leipzig, or Tesla’s plant south of Berlin, with lower wage scales, longer hours, and more jobless workers — highly skilled, but largely unacquainted with strikes (though this situation is now improving).
About another third of the population just about managed to get along. But for them — and even more for the lowest-income third of society, including single mothers, poorly pensioned retirees, and the precariously employed — there was widespread disillusionment. In the first years of “united Germany,” the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) — the demonized foster child of the former GDR ruling party — did poorly. But with the big world recession of 2008–9 when the Social Democrats virtually deserted their working-class supporters, the newly formed Die Linke — an amalgamation of the PDS with a left-wing breakaway in Western Germany — attracted nearly five million voters, 12 percent, in a loud, angry protest.
Many Die Linke politicians increasingly came to be seen by unhappy voters as just another part of the establishment.
But this high point was never achieved again. Die Linke leaders, gaining amazing 25-33 percent results in the Eastern states, won so many seats on the federal level (with up to seventy-six seats in the Bundestag) and in state and local government that some seemed to welcome the accompanying prestige, pay, perks, and pensions, also for their staffers. Some “kept up the good fight.” Others, seemingly satisfied to settle for smaller improvements, increasingly came to be seen by unhappy voters as just another part of the establishment.
Others were eager to fill the resulting gap. Infiltrators from West Germany joined fascist-minded Eastern rabble-rousers emerging from the woodwork, almost fully inactive in the GDR days and now no longer kept silent. They led disoriented, dissatisfied young men to blame their — quite genuine — troubles not on the monopolies squeezing East Germany dry but rather on refugees and immigrants, seeking asylum from wars and misery and seeking ways to survive. Their different skin colors, faiths, clothing, and language made it easy to see them as “others,” and many racist, pro-Nazi groups formed, marched, shouted, sang, and violently attacked, sometimes with deathly Molotov cocktails. Countless small-town cops, judges, prosecutors, and mayors tolerated or favored them — out of sympathy or fear. And some officials at very high levels did as well.
Since its founding in 2013, these groups increasingly coalesced around the AfD, which, step by step, moved to the nationalist, racist right. Its leader in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, has called for a renewal of Germany’s “thousand-year Reich,” only slightly coding his violent dog whistles. He was recently fined by a court for shouting the legally forbidden Nazi storm-trooper slogan “Alles für Deutschland!” in a speech. He has since repeated it, shouting “Alles für . . .” and letting his mob add “Deutschland.” In Thuringia, his party now leads the polls with 30 percent support. In Saxony, also voting September 1, the AfD stands even higher.
Many dissatisfied young men blamed their troubles not on the monopolies squeezing East Germany dry, but on refugees and immigrants.
How did Die Linke react? While avowing support for working-class struggles and seeking friendship with some union leaders, it mostly failed to engage in active, visible support. To maintain its shrinking ranks, it turned to young, highly educated circles, and adopted the common language of identity politics and its attendant battles over grammar; important matters for some, but of little interest to most of the millions worried about paying the rent and affording healthy food for themselves or their children.
Die Linke did speak up against devastating rent increases, about childcare and the disastrous lack of affordable housing. It had occasional, limited success in a few big cities, but was more often seen in stiff legislative chambers than in the raucous street rallies it needed. It continually chose its candidate lists from the same intellectual circles, among party officials — in rare cases, a few white-collar workers, but never anyone with a “blue collar.”
Die Linke was the only party to maintain humane positions on refugees and immigrants, opposing the growing call “German culture must not be mixed or diluted!” — “The boat is full!” But they offered few proposals for solving problems in terms of jobs, wages, education, housing, or integration, and so lost more votes than they gained. All too many were won over by the vicious but effective propaganda of the AfD, tuned to increased pressures with the recession and the COVID-19 crisis. One result: an estimated 34 percent of working-class voters preferred AfD, while only 3 percent stuck with Die Linke.
Die Linke continually chose its candidate lists from the same intellectual circles, among party officials — in rare cases, a few white-collar workers, but never anyone with a ‘blue collar.’
After the Zeitenwende
But most important are decisions on war and peace. The parties in the ruling coalition (Social Democrats, Greens, neoliberal Free Democrats) are now constantly at each other’s throats — about the climate, the educational crisis at all levels, the calamity with the railroads, and increasing poverty among seniors. All three are seeking separate salvation from disastrous election results: next month in East Germany, next year in the all-German Bundestag vote, with the Free Democrats facing political oblivion, and all three flirting with their hitherto adversaries, the Christian Democrats, today well ahead in national polls.
But while the government parties quarrel over budget cuts for their ministries, they approve billions for military support for Kyiv — and Germany’s own “defense against the Russian threat.” Since the 2014 Maidan putsch, Germany has sent more than any other European country, ignoring a few timid Social Democrats like Bundestag fraction chairman Rolf Mützenich who dare to urge attempts to achieve peace. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with an eye to the coming elections, has seemed occasionally to drag his feet, like with his opposition to sending giant, far-reaching Taurus missiles. But he eventually goes along with the ever more frightening demands of Social Democratic defense minister Boris Pistorius.
These same forces, despite growing popular opposition — and some very limited criticisms on their own part — also support Benjamin Netanyahu’s war in Gaza. The considerably German-armed campaign is labeled a battle for “Israel’s right to survive,” which now seemingly outweighs the killing of at least 40,000 people in Gaza, with thousands of children killed, buried under rubble, or maimed physically and psychically for life, and three cities methodically razed to the ground. It is all justified in the name of a German commitment to restitution for the crimes of 1933–45.
There are a few cracks in this wall of unanimity. One is the AfD. Not on Israel policy! Its all-out support for Netanyahu’s war may seem surprising given the occasional antisemitic signals inherited from its twentieth-century models. But outweighing such carryovers is its inherent obsession with the “Islamist” menace, endangering “basic German culture” under the weight of women’s hijabs and bearded men’s recital of suwar from the Koran (and the rare but tragic crime, hardly unexpected in any group of displaced, discriminated-against, and often bitter young men).
The Alternative für Deutschland is no peace party; it wants a stronger NATO, more armaments, military conscription — in general, a return to Germany’s twentieth-century military power.
But why does the AfD also support Vladimir Putin? Likely Putin will ally with anyone who opposes the European Union and its anti-Russian sanctions and financial support for Volodymyr Zelensky. The AfD is probably calling for peace negotiations in Ukraine for pragmatic reasons, knowing that perhaps 70 percent of East Germans (and almost 50 percent of West Germans) reject current moves toward war. But the AfD is no peace party; it wants a stronger NATO, more armaments, military conscription — in general, a return to Germany’s twentieth-century military power.
Die Linke, though divided in many ways, was always the sole “party of peace.” As in many countries, however, the Ukraine conflict split it disastrously. Its main leaders blamed both sides — already a daring position — but increasingly overlooked NATO’s role. But within its ranks, former parliamentary cospeaker Sahra Wagenknecht and her supporters pointed to Washington’s continuing mission to rule the world. They blamed NATO for negating its promises never to expand eastward, by moving big weapons as well as naval and military maneuvers into former Eastern Bloc countries now integrated into the alliance. They argued that this meant an encirclement of the Russian heartland while controlling its Baltic and Black Sea deep sea outlets and rejecting all Russian offers — or pleas — to reach some form of détente.
In early 2023, Wagenknecht and her allies formulated a peace manifesto that was signed within a few weeks by nearly 800,000 people, and then organized a peace rally in Berlin that attracted perhaps 50,000. When Die Linke’s leadership boycotted both the manifesto and the rally, calling on members to do likewise (allegedly because there were insufficient red lines against AfD supporters’ attending), the deed was done; and late last year the umbilical cord was severed and the new baby born: the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW).
The Ukraine conflict split Die Linke disastrously.
After the Split
Within seven months, Wagenknecht’s BSW has pushed its poll score up to 9 percent nationally. In the Eastern states voting in September, BSW leads Die Linke by 18 to 13 percent in Thuringia (though this is the one state where, since 2014, Die Linke has had the minister-president). In Brandenburg, BSW leads 17 to 5, with Die Linke on the brink of disappearance. In Saxony, BSW polls at 13 percent while Die Linke — formerly in second place — is down to a disastrous 3 percent.
In these votes, Die Linke risks not making parliament in two out of three states. The Free Democrats and Greens are out of the running in all three, and the Social Democrats near the bottom (outside their Brandenburg stronghold). The only remaining contenders will be a very strong AfD, quite strong Christian Democrats, and BSW. None are close to a majority; all have rejected ties with either of the others.
What will happen? Some Christian Democrats have begun to play footsie with the AfD, whose far-right ideas are not all that far from its own. In a few towns and villages, we have already seen a first open — if timid — embrace. Can it be magnified all over Saxony?
In Brandenburg, where the Social Democrats retain some strength, there is talk of overcoming the existing strong taboo on approaching Wagenknecht’s alliance. Would that suffice?
Most surprising — or alarming — have been malicious whispers of a possible AfD-BSW arrangement of some kind. Wagenknecht has stated that her BSW can never join with any party that supports unconditional arms shipments to Ukraine. Only the AfD — for reasons of its own — fits that bill. Wagenknecht’s position on immigrants — stricter rules, lower numbers — sometimes seems to contain echoes of AfD “Germans first” positions. Economically, she has seemed to favor middle-class groups and a return to the “social market economy” of mid-1960s West German chancellor Ludwig Erhard, with a few mentions of working-class rights but little audible militancy thus far, much less any references to socialism.
Economically, Sahra Wagenknecht has seemed to favor middle-class groups and a return to the ‘social market economy’ of mid-1960s West Germany.
Wagenknecht claims that her party is the best, or only real, barrier to the AfD and fascists generally. But although some of the strongest left-wing personalities left Die Linke to join her BSW, it has clear limits. It plans no written program until next fall, does not yet recruit members, and still relies heavily both on its novelty as a protest vote and its leader’s dominant personality and excellent skills as a speaker.
Is Die Linke doomed? One of its sections — basically the Marxists, though they are almost always outvoted by the leaders’ conservative wing — decided not to join BSW but to stay and fight. They especially resist a weakening of the traditional Die Linke opposition to NATO, also in the case of Ukraine, and oppose any deployment of German armaments and troops abroad. They are also fighting some leaders’ slippery stance avoiding frankly opposing Netanyahu’s brutal genocide.
But Die Linke’s frightening losses — just 2.7 percent in June’s EU elections — and the great success of the BSW in weaning away its members seem finally to have forced a change. One result: less than two weeks before the state elections, both of Die Linke’s chairpersons announced they would not stand for reelection at October’s party congress. Luckily (or by plan), a male West German and a female East German have already applied to replace them. Such a “balance” is an established equation, but this time their aim is basically to rescue Die Linke from the abyss.
Their statements sound optimistic, but also militant. Can this mean that what remains of Die Linke will start really fighting, also in the streets, factories, supermarkets, and colleges, for working people, for peace, and for socialism — perhaps, in the end, more than BSW?
These candidates’ future is uncertain. But it will be extremely important if there is to be any real resistance to the increasingly dangerous trend toward German remilitarization, expansion — and possibly even some modern equivalent of fascism.
As for me, I am keeping an open mind — and again recall the words of Mark Twain: “I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell — you see, I have friends in both places.”