While the party performed strongly across Germany, the AfD achieved the second-best result of all parties in the former communist-ruled German Democratic Republic and, with 27 percent of the vote share, was the most popular party among East German men.
When trying to explain the AfD’s success, analysts have often pointed to eastern Germany’s continuing relative economic weakness. However, most AfD supporters are not economically "left behind" voters. Studies have found that while the AfD’s electorate is not homogenous, most AfD voters are male, have an average level of education and belong to the medium-income bracket. Moreover, the AfD performed gained more votes than any other party in Saxony, East Germany’s wealthiest state. [...]
After World War II, the East German regime tried to shun its historical responsibility by declaring widespread racism had been overcome, by an incomplete program of denazification, by introducing a new socioeconomic system and by portraying West Germany as the sole inheritor of the Nazi legacy. [...]
Suppressing responsibility for Nazi atrocities was helped by the Marxist-Leninist conception of fascism. Communist doctrine considered fascism to be the most extreme form of capitalism. By changing the socioeconomic structures of the state, communists would, it was argued, be able to rid society of fascist and anti-Semitic elements. In contrast, the West still harbored the virus of fascism as it did not break with capitalism - the wellspring of the horrors of the Nazi regime. [...]
That pervasive ethos meant that when many East Germans were first confronted with the West German Erinnerungskultur (culture of remembrance) after reunification felt very alienated. The AfD has succeeded in tapping into this feeling of alienation and manipulating it to further its own agenda.
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