30 Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Right Wing Extremism is on the Rise as the Economy of Eastern Germany Lags Behind the Economy of Western Germany

30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, right wing extremism is on the rise as the economy of Eastern Germany lags behind the economy of Western Germany. In the evening hours of November 9, 1989, the world watched as East Berliners climbed over the Berlin wall for the first time, celebrating their new found freedom from Communism and the Soviet Union. The wall came down peacefully, which was a surprise, for the collapse of powerful empires usually ends in violence, not peace. Even though the wall is down, in many ways the divide between East and West still exists. This has led to the rise of Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) in Eastern Germany. AfD runs on a anti-Islam, Euro-skeptic platform and has benefited from fears of foreigners in the country, and from a feeling, by East Germans, of being left behind by the centrist parties. AfD recently finished second in the eastern German state of Thuringia, with voters under the age of 30 making up the majority of their voter base. The leader of AfD, Bjoern Hoecke, is currently under investigation by the German federal intelligence agencies for extremist speech and using the words "Lebensraum" and "degenerate," which are associated with the Nazi's. The rise of radicalism in the East occurred before the rise of AfD, but AfD built on those attitudes. The influx of refugees from majority Muslim nations have not helped the extremist sentiments rising in the East. A major reason for this rise is a lack of Eastern German infrastructure.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/30-years-fall-berlin-wall-wing-extremism-rise/story?id=66670250&cid=clicksource_76_null_headlines_hed
 
-Alex Kitzmann