THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE

DEPARTMENT OF GERMAN

“TEMPERATE BRUTALITY”: THE AfD AND RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM IN POSTWAR

ALLISON RUMAN SPRING 2020

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for baccalaureate degrees in German, Political Science, and Classics & Ancient Mediterranean Studies with honors in German

Reviewed and approved* by the following:

Jens-Uwe Guettel Associate Professor in History and Religious Studies Thesis Supervisor and Honors Adviser

Gretchen Casper Associate Professor of Political Science and Asian Studies Faculty Reader

* Electronic approvals are on file. i

ABSTRACT

Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist, die Entwicklung des Rechtextremismus in

Nachkriegsdeutschland aufzuzeichnen. Die Arbeit beginnt mit einem Vergleich der von NSDAP

Reichstagsabgeordneten benutzten Sprache in den Reichstagsdebatten von 1928 und Reden von

AfD-Abgeordneten und anderen höherrangigen AfD-Vertretern seit dem Zusammentreten des jetzigen Bundestages im Jahr 2018. Durch diesen Vergleich werden die rhetorischen

Ähnlichkeiten zwischen Vertretern beider Parteien und ihren Überzeugungen deutlich.

Der erste Teil dieser Arbeit ist eine Analyse des Rechtextremismus seit dem Ende des zweiten Weltkrieges bis zum Aufkommen der AfD Anfang 2013. Dieser Teil basiert auf

Zeitungs- und Sekundärliteraturrecherche und bietet eine umfassende Zusammenfassung des

Rechtextremismus in Nachkriegsdeutschland. Nach 1949 hatten mehrere rechtsextreme Parteien kleinere Erfolge in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, n allerdings wurden keine ihrer Vertreter in den gewählt. Die Entwicklung dieser Parteien wurde durch mehrere Geschehnisse beeinflusst, einschließlich der relativ neuen rhetorischen Abgrenzung der „Neuen Rechten“ vom traditionellen „NS Sprech“ und der zumindest teilweise (jedoch nicht in Björn Höckes „Flügel“ der AfD) vorhandenen Bereitschaft, die fortbestehende Verantwortung der Deutschen für die

Verbrechen der Nazis anzuerkennen.

In der DDR machte der staatlich verordnete Antifaschismus rechtsextremistische

Verhaltensweisen zu einer zum Teil weitverbreiteten Gegenkultur unter Jugendlichen. Die

Skinheadbewegung schuf dann eine Art der Jugendkultur die Rechtextremismus und

Straßengewalt mit Musik und einer “coolen” Klubkultur vereinigte. Aufgrund des markanten

Wohlstandsgefälles zwischen den alten und neuen Bundesländern nach 1990 entwickelte sich ii der ostdeutsche Rechtextremismus anders als in den alten Bundesländern und führte zu mehreren fremdenfeindlichen, einwandererfeindlichen Ausschreitungen. Das Ziel dieses Teils meiner

Arbeit ist es nachzuzeichnen, wie Rechtextremismus selbst nach 1945 in Deutschland weiter existierte und die Faktoren, die ihn beeinflussten und beeinflussen, aufzuzeigen. Diese

Information ist wesentlich, um der Zusammenhang, in dem die AfD gefördert wurde, zu verstehen.

Der zweite Teil dieser Arbeit ist eine Fallstudie der AfD und eine Analyse ihrer Erfolge sowohl auf Landes- als auch auf Bundesebene. Dieser Teil beginnt mit einer Zusammenfassung der Geschichte der Partei, einschließlich ihrer jüngsten Wahlerfolge. Diese Zusammenfassung enthält auch eine Analyse der Online-Präsenz der AfD und ihre Unterstützer. Die Analyse zeigt, dass obwohl die frühe AfD nicht unbedingt als “rechtspopulistische” bezeichnet werden kann, sie dennoch Rechtextremisten anzog, und den Netzauftritt von lokalen Rechtsextremisten mit regionalen AfD-Netzseiten verlinkte. Obwohl die AfD seit ihrer Gründung Rechtextremisten anzog, wurde sie mit einer rein wirtschaftlichen Zielsetzung gegründet, und außerdem grenzte sich das frühe Führungspersonal der AfD von Rechtsextremisten klar ab. Trotzdem wurde die

Partei allmählich immer rassistischer. Die Flüchtlingskrise von 2015 verschärfte die rechtsextremistischen Tendenzen der AfD und nun ist sie in den Landtagen aller16

Bundesländer, im Bundestag und im Europäischen Parlament vertreten. Es besteht offensichtlicherweise eine klare Korrelation zwischen Rechtextremismus und wirtschaftlichen

Problemen. Im Vergleich zum Westen ist der Osten selbst 30 Jahre nach dem Fall der Mauer noch wirtschaftlich benachteilig. Das war der Fall 2013, dem Jahr, in dem die AfD gegründet wurde, und es ist heute immer noch so: Obwohl Gesamtdeutschland heute wirtschaftlich wohlhabender ist als 2013, bleibt der Trend zwischen Osten und Westen doch gleich. Es ist also iii auffällig, dass man basierend auf den Wahlergebnissen und Mitgliederzahlen feststellen kann, dass die Bewohner der neuen Bundesländer sich erst für die AfD zu interessieren begannen, als die Partei begann, zunehmend in den Rechtsextremismus abzugleiten (also im Jahr 2015) und zunehmend rassistischer und fremdfeindlicher wurde. Weil sich die wirtschaftliche Lage der neuen Bundesländer sich seit der Gründung der Partei nicht verändert, kann man mit Sicherheit sagen, dass der Osten Deutschlands klar positiv auf den zunehmenden Extremismus der Partei reagiert hat.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ...... v

LIST OF TABLES ...... vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... vii

Chapter One Introduction ...... 1

Chapter Two A Historical Analysis of Right-Wing Extremism in Postwar Germany 10

Chapter Three Alternativ für Deutschland and Right-Wing Extremism’s Return to the German Federal Parliament ...... 30

Chapter Four Conclusion ...... 54

Appendices ...... 56

Appendix A: GDP per Capita for each State ...... 56 Appendix B: Percent Each State Contributes to Germany’s GDP ...... 58 Appendix C: Unemployment Rates in Germany ...... 62 Appendix D: State Election Data ...... 65 Appendix E: Federal Election Data ...... 68 Appendix F: Current AfD Representation in State Parliaments...... 71 Appendix G: Map of Germany ...... 73

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 74

v

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Gross Domestic Product per Inhabitant in Germany by Federal State, 2013 Visual 56

Figure 2. Gross Domestic Product per Inhabitant in Germany by Federal State, 2018 Visual 57

Figure 3. GDP Per German State Graph ...... 58

Figure 4. Percent Each State Contributes to Germany's GDP, 2013 Visual ...... 59

Figure 5. Percent Each State Contributes to Germany's GDP, 2018 Visual ...... 60

Figure 6. Percent Each State Contributes to Germany's GDP Graph ...... 61

Figure 7. Unemployment in German States, 2013 Visual ...... 62

Figure 8. Unemployment in German States, 2020 Visual ...... 63

Figure 9. Unemployment Rate in German States Graph ...... 64

Figure 10. Percent of AfD Votes in State Elections Before 2016, Visual ...... 65

Figure 11. Percent of AfD Votes in State Elections After 2016, Visual ...... 66

Figure 12. Percent of AfD Votes in State Elections Graph ...... 67

Figure 13. AfD Support in German Federal Elections, 2013 Visual ...... 68

Figure 14. AfD Support in German Federal Elections, 2017 Visual ...... 69

Figure 15. AfD Support in German Federal Elections Graph ...... 70

Figure 16. Current (February 2020) AfD Representation in State Parliaments Visual ...... 71

Figure 17. Current (February 2020) AfD Representation in State Parliaments Graph ...... 72

Figure 18. Map of Germany ...... 73

vi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. GDP per Capita per State ...... 33

Table 2. Percent Each State Contributes to Germany's GDP ...... 33

Table 3. Percent of AfD Votes in State Elections ...... 49

Table 4. Percent of AfD Votes in Federal Elections ...... 49

Table 5. Unemployment Rates in German States ...... 51

Table 6. Current (February 2020) AfD Representation in State Parliaments (Statista) ...... 72

vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my immeasurable appreciation for my honors adviser and thesis supervisor, Dr. Guettel, for his guidance through the entire thesis process, and for consistently and enthusiastically offering direction and feedback not only for my thesis but for my post- graduate plans and academic future. I would also like to thank my faculty reader, Dr. Casper, for agreeing to take the time to read my work and for inspiring me to pursue such research. The class I took with her was one of the most pivotal of my undergraduate career.

I would also like to express my gratitude to my high school German teacher, Frau

Schmidt, not only for introducing me to the and putting me on the path I’m on, but also for recognizing my passion for German and history and going above and beyond to foster that passion in any way she could.

Lastly, I would like to thank my parents for always encouraging me to challenge myself and supporting my endeavors, especially when we did not see eye-to-eye but they trusted my judgment regardless. 1

Chapter One

Introduction

In 1920, the year after the establishment of both the and the German

Workers’ Party, eventually renamed to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), a 31-year-old political agent named drafted the 25-Point Program. The program, at that point serving as a basis for the party’s platform, called for both nationalist and socialist policies, uniting two traditionally competing ideologies into a single political party. The NSDAP entered the German parliament, the Reichstag, for the first time in 1924, receiving just 6.5 percent of the vote in the federal election. In the 1928 election, the party gained just 2.6 percent of the vote, before catapulting to 18.3 percent in September 1930 and then 37.4 percent in July

1932. Ninety-four years later, the Alternativ für Deutschland (, AfD) party is in a remarkably similar situation as the NSDAP was in 1924; after only existing for four years, in 2017 the AfD entered the German parliament, now called the Bundestag, for the first time, and has been making consistent progress since its inception.1

Nearly a century separates these two parties, but there are considerable similarities between the political environments of each party. Both the NSDAP and the AfD emerged amid international economic conflict: in 1920 the war reparations set out in the Treaty of Versailles, and in 2013 the Greek government-debt crisis. Both benefitted from international turmoil: in

1929 the Stock Market Crash and consequent Great Depression, and in 2015 the European refugee crisis. Seen as a break from the political norm of established parties, both parties

1 Britannica, “Adolf Hitler”; Holocaust Museum, “ Platform”; Marxists.org, “Election Results” 2 mobilized former non-voters: in 1920, the NSDAP combined nationalist and socialist policies, eliminating the need for voters to choose, and in 2013, the AfD campaigned for leaving the

Eurozone and discontinuing use of the Euro, which no established parties wanted to do.2

Though they display unprecedented parallels, there are marked differences between these environments as well, besides the AfD’s advantage of nearly 70 years of hindsight over the

NSDAP. First, the NSDAP emerged during the aftermath of a World War and a complete remodeling of politics and society; though the exhibited several features of democracy, Germany never had a true democracy. The international relations also contrasted; after one of the most destructive wars in history, the Weimar Republic was surrounded by an actively hostile France and a run by Communists, which scared the majority of

Weimar citizens and allowed competing parties to unite against a common enemy. In contrast, the Germany that begot the AfD had nearly 70 years to recover from war and was part of a number of international organizations designed to promote peace and mutual prosperity, including the European Union, the United Nations and NATO. Though the 1990s reunification was chaotic, it preceded the AfD by 20 years and eliminated the threat of .

Reinforced by the tense international relations in the 1920s, the Weimar Republic was virtually powerless in the economic negotiations of their time, while Germany was in the commanding position during the Greek government-debt crisis. Moreover, the Weimar Republic endured economic catastrophe incomparable to any other economic crisis: hyperinflation so extreme that a loaf of bread cost billions of Marks.3

2 Knox, “Treaty of Versailles”; Wernette, “Nazi Vote,” 2-3 3 Beck, “Seizure of Power”; Deutscher Bundestag, “The Empire”; Jung, “Hyperinflation”; Kizilirmak, “Franco- German Rivalry,” 5 3 Taking these similarities and differences into consideration, the language used by each party bears a striking resemblance. Both parties show blatant anti-foreigner sentiments and ethnocentrism. One such example came from former naval officer and NSDAP representative

Ernst Graf zu Reventlow. Addressing the Reichstag, he claimed that the Committee of Inquiry

(Untersuchungsausschuß) was established in bad taste to prosecute military heroes Hindenburg and Ludendorff in front of a committee “which was preferably composed of Jews and semi-

Jews” (Reichstagsprotokolle, 233-234). The Nazis insinuated that the German government, in its creation of this committee, was more concerned with Jews than the ethnic Germans it was prosecuting. In September 2018, the AfD insinuated that the German government cares more about immigrants than German citizens when, during budget debates, it chastised the government for spending more money on immigrant classes than literacy resources for German citizens.

While the NSDAP was actively defending ethnic Germans and passively condemning Jews, the

AfD was passively defending German citizens and actively condemning non-German immigrants. Moreover, the NSDAP based German identity on ethnicity, whereas the AfD based it on citizenship. Nonetheless, in both cases, the parties sought to ostracize people they viewed as non-Germans, implying a Germans-only exclusivity does or should exist.4

Shunning non-Germans in such a manner was not an isolated incident. At one point in the Reichstag debates, the Nazis sarcastically suggested that the Purim festival should be the

German national holiday, and why stop there? Rabbis should lead the government and then everyone can celebrate the republic by singing the Kohud prayer, and that “a party that has trampled everything nationalist, that has gone against everything nationalist, has no right to talk about nationalism” (Reichstagsprotokolle, 151). By insinuating that the other parties had no

4 Deutscher Reichstag, Reichstagsprotokolle, 233-234; Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll, 4962 4 problem making a Jewish holiday a national celebration, the Nazis here are implying that the other parties were not dedicated to the preservation of German culture, and by extension the

Christian religion. The NSDAP equated German culture with Christianity when it suggested that the introduction of a non-Christian religion and its culture was a threat to German culture, implying that Christianity was an integral part of German culture. After a stabbing in the eastern

German city of Chemnitz in 2018, police identified suspects from Iraq and Syria, leading to clashes between the far-right and the far-left. In the Bundestag, Dr. , representing the AfD, said that these far-left protesters “like to beat bus drivers, trample their opponents’ heads, rape the women so brutally that they are literally green and blue, kick pregnant women in the stomach so as to cause a miscarriage…to warm themselves on burning

German flags and Christian bibles…it is so violent, so hostile to Germany, so anti-Christian”

(Plenarprotokolle, 4944). The AfD again relates being German to being Christian asserting that the far-left is neither, and since the far-left sympathizes with foreigners, they are accordingly anti-German and anti-Christian as well. In this instance there are dramatic differences; the

NSDAP was responding to a debate about choosing a national holiday, whereas Baumann was referencing a violent incident. Furthermore, the NSDAP members condemned Jewish religion and culture for existing, not for any specific transgressions related to Judaism. Baumann, on the other hand, referred to two groups: far-left protesters and people from Iraq and Syria, or probably more generally, the Middle East. In contrast to the NSDAP, Baumann condemned the targeted groups for specific violent mannerisms that are a direct threat to people. The NSDAP also only implied that anything non-Christian logically threatened the inherently Christian German culture, which Germans themselves were passively destroying by not condemning non-Christian features, whereas Baumann explicitly stated that as these groups were both anti-Christian and 5 hostile to Germany, therefore actively working to destroy German culture. Despite the differences in the situations, it is clear that both parties equate German culture with Christianity and imply that anyone opposing or sympathizing with foreigners must inherently be working against Germany. ’s sympathy for foreigners was supplemented by the leftist protestors shouting chants in favor of welcoming refugees to counter the far-right’s cries to close the borders. Here again, both parties associated German ethnicity with Christianity and attempt to alienate non-Germans.5

This was not the only incident emerging from the Chemnitz attack that showed the similarities between the Nazi Party and the AfD. In the Reichstag, , representing the NSDAP, brought up trials of the Fememorder, attacks committed by the far right against political opponents in 1919-1923, calling the trials of the Fememorder a “sad sign of cowardice…nothing more than the outflow of the infernal Jewish hatred against the spirit of the national resistance…[perpetrated by those] fulfilling their patriotic duty” (Reichstagsprotokolle,

20). After the Chemnitz attack in 2018, AfD Bundestag member Markus Frohnmaier implied support for vigilante action against foreigners, tweeting, “If the state can no longer protect the citizen, then people will go on the streets and protect themselves” (The Local 2018). In both instances, the parties advocated for violence, whether actively or passively: Frohnmaier specifically endorsed violence, and Frick condemned murder trials, thereby insinuating that there was nothing bad about those murders. Once again, there are important differences to note. Frick was responding to a reaction to violence, while Frohnmaier was encouraging violence itself among private citizens. Frohnmaier also encouraged violence as a means of self-defense,

5 Deutscher Reichstag, Reichstagsprotokolle, 151; Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokolle, 4944; Knight, “Violence in Chemnitz”; ntv, “Haftbefehle Erlassen” 6 whereas Frick supported violence that was physically unprovoked. The Fememorder were also committed by the far-right against political opponents, making the motivation for this violence inherently political. Though the suspect of the Chemnitz attack was suspected to be from Iraq or

Syria, there was no evidence that there was a motivation for the attack or that it was directed at a certain demographic, making it non-political. Additionally, the Fememorder were a series of killings whereas the Chemnitz attack was a one-time occurrence. Moreover, other than the government, Frohnmaier did not target any group in particular when referencing violence, whereas Frick explicitly mentioned Jews, once again implying that Jews were incompatible with

German national interests. It is also important to note that AfD politician Frohnmaier made his statement on social media and not in the formal setting of the Bundestag. Regardless, it is not as if Frohnmaier happened to mention such violence in private to a confidant; he deliberately chose to make a statement on a public platform on which he functioned as an AfD representative. In both situations, members from these parties revealed their belief that violence was sometimes at the very least necessary.6

Both parties have also shown racist tendencies. In the Reichstag, NSDAP representative

Gregor Strasser spoke of Rudolf Hilferding, a Social Democrat minister in the Weimar Republic.

Strasser said that Hilferding is difficult to understand, as he speaks broken German, and that “a not small part of the German people...feels ashamed that a negroid Jew from east Galicia sits here as minister” (Reichstagsprotokolle, 109). Not only did Strasser make derogatory remarks about ethnic Galicians, who are from a region in modern Poland and Ukraine, but he also openly used a racial slur. In November 2019, the AfD made a racist remark against a mixed-race

6 Campbell and Brenner, “Feme Murder”; Deutscher Reichstag, Reichstagsprotokolle, 20; The Local, “Hooligans Attack Migrants” 7 German citizen. After Benigna Munsi, whose father is ethnically Indian, was chosen as the symbolic Christ Child to open the Nuremberg Christmas market, the local AfD branch suggested that Munsi’s selection, “showed German people were being eradicated like indigenous groups in

North America…[that] one day, [we’re] going to go the way of the Indians” (Duncan 2019). The local branch deleted the post after criticism from the Nuremberg mayor. Like the NSDAP, the

AfD displayed against a non-white German, implying that their skin color or heritage made them less German. There are a few differences to note between these two circumstances.

There was a difference in the balance of power of these instances: Strasser slighted a member of the Weimar government, someone who was roughly his equal, whereas the AfD, a party directly involved in governing, slighted a private German citizen. Furthermore, Strasser named specific characteristics in his slight against Hilferding, from his accent and language skills to his skin tone and ethnicity. The AfD did not attack Munsi in such a specific way, only saying that the

German race was dying out. Strasser also only attacked Hilferding, insinuating that he should not be in the position he was in, but did not imply that Hilferding was somehow conspiring against ethnic Germans. The AfD, on the other hand, compared the selection of Munsi to the genocide of the indigenous people of the and that this exemplified the decay of the

German race. Once again, it is important to note that this was posted on Facebook by a local branch of the AfD, and not said in the Bundestag by a national representative. But, as with

Frohnmaier, the post was made by an official AfD branch and posted on a public platform by an account that represents the party. Overall, these situations were fairly similar. In both cases, the parties indicated that people who do not look German are not actually Germans, again implying a

Germans-only exclusivity that should be in place.7

7 Deutscher Reichstag, Reichstagsprotokolle, 109; Duncan, “Mayor Condemns Far-Right Party” 8 The parties also have a distinctly negative attitude towards other countries and their roles in Germany’s economy. In 1924, the Dawes Plan was created to resolve Germany’s inability to pay exorbitant war reparations and the resulting hyperinflation. However, not everyone in the country was thrilled about it. On July 13, 1928, NSDAP representative Werner Willikens claimed that the Dawes Plan would ultimately increase imports and “never allow the German agriculture to flourish again” (Reichstagsprotokolle, 225). The AfD claimed a similar case with the European Union. Dr. Herald Weyel, representing the AfD in the Bundestag, said that the

European Union was depleting German money, citing the fact that Germany is the Union’s largest contributor, and stating that “whatever the German taxpayer earns will be siphoned off by the EU” (Plenarprotokolle, 4963). Though Weyel acknowledged the successes of the EU, including peace and political stability, he remarked that peace is attainable without the EU. Both parties expressed antagonistic attitudes towards international accords that, all things considered, would help Germany. The differences in these two situations mainly concern the nature of the economic issue. Willikens referenced a plan that was specifically designed to help the German economy. Weyel referred to the European Union, which was not designed specifically for

Germany, but one that Germany would benefit from being part of nonetheless. Moreover, with the Dawes Plan, Germany was in turmoil and indebted to other countries, whereas Germany is a dominant force in the EU, contributing the most financially. Not only does this show Germany’s current position of power that was absent in 1928, but also that Germany’s economy is strong and growing, which is the opposite of when the Dawes Plan went into action. The nature of the complaints was different as well; Willikens took issue with the Dawes Plan because, in his mind, the plan would create the conditions that would keep Germany’s economy from flourishing, rather than the Plan directly suppressing the economy, whereas Weyel noted that the institution 9 of the European Union itself was hurting Germany’s economy simply by existing. Overall, however, the situations are quite similar. In both instances, representatives of the party exude a nationalist attitude, suggesting that Germany would be better off without these international interferences. Both parties viewed other countries as detrimental to Germany and its economy and appeared to favor German isolationism rather than international cooperation.8

Though there are important differences between the NSDAP and the AfD, the language used by the AfD shows a persistence of the same values that the NSDAP espoused. The parties are mainly concerned with the forces threatening “true” Germans and their culture. Though these forces manifest themselves differently with each party, their reactions to the forces are largely the same. Considering the seven and a half decades of progress since the fall of the Nazi regime, the AfD’s abrupt success on a platform of Nazi-like ideas is almost inconceivable. Since the sudden and unexpected return of these values seems unimaginable, perhaps a better question to ask than how these ideas made such a rapid comeback would be whether these ideas ever disappeared at all.

8 Deutscher Reichstag, Reichstagsprotokolle, 225; Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokolle, 4963 10

Chapter Two

A Historical Analysis of Right-Wing Extremism in Postwar Germany

Ninety-five years have passed since the NSDAP first obtained power in the German government, and yet there are still Germans who exhibit the same German-only exclusivity, equation of Christianity and “Germanness” and perceived hostility from other countries that the

NSDAP displayed. Though the AfD championed the return of such ideas to the federal parliament, Germany was far from devoid of them in the time between the Nazi regime and the creation of the AfD. Directly after the war, the three Allied Powers, the United States, Britain, and France, signed the Potsdam Agreement of 1945, which laid out plans to eradicate national socialism in Germany. Britain, France, and the United States planned to build Germany into a parliamentary democracy and establish democratic institutions from the local level to the national level. One way they did this was through licensing laws, which required all political parties to acquire a license from their respective occupying power before they could legally operate with the goal of limiting or preventing extremist parties. These allowed parties like the

Christlich Demokratische Union, (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) and the

Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, (Social Democrat Party of Germany, SPD) to function and enabled the Western powers to control the political environment of their zone. Though the licensing laws did a fairly decent job of preventing far-right groups from organizing, they did not eradicate the actual right-wing extremist feelings and ideas themselves. In spite of these laws, some parties managed to form, including the Deutsche Konservative Partei (German

Conservative Party) and the Deutsche Aufbaupartei (German Reconstruction Party), which merged in 1946 to create the Deutsche Rechts-Partei (German Right-Wing Party, DRP) with the 11 intention of supporting pre-Nazi national and conservative beliefs. Nevertheless, the Allied

Powers closely monitored far-right activities.9

The first four years of the Federal Republic of Germany () saw the first wave of organized right-wing extremist parties. Fearing that the international community would not accept Germany and wanting to avoid debates about Nazi elites in postwar Germany, the

West German government denied the existence of a xenophobic far-right movement. While this certainly aided far-right parties’ establishment, most did not grow beyond a regional level and therefore had only marginal influence. The DRP was by far the most extreme group, but only managed to secure its license in the British zone, resulting in dismal federal election outcomes in

1949. Still, they won five seats in the Bundestag, the lower chamber of Germany’s parliament.

Despite this relative success, the DRP was short-lived because of ideological disputes. After allies lifted licensing laws later that year, more extreme political forces emerged, most notably the Sozialistische Reichspartei (, SRP). Established by DRP expellees, the

SRP had a much more national socialist outlook and did not attempt to hide its distaste for the

West German government. The SRP enjoyed successes in the 1951 state elections in Lower

Saxony and , but in October of 1952 the party was banned for its neo-Nazi character, effectively ending the first wave of postwar right-wing extremism. The Wirtschaftswunder, the

West German economy’s rapid economic recovery and growth in the 1950s, no doubt played a role in the first wave’s demise, as the far-right drew much of its support base during times of economic turmoil. This was not the first time the far-right in Germany benefitted from economic turmoil. As already cited in Chapter One, the Nazis very much benefitted from the economic turmoil of the Weimar Republic and exploited the heightened fears of desperate and scared

9 McGowan, Radical Right in Germany, 148-150 12 Germans. Such exploitation is one of the key recruitment strategies of far-right parties and is reinforced with each German far-right party’s success.10

The organized far-right lost much of its support as members migrated to the much stronger and more center CDU and Article 131 of the Basic Law, which allowed Third Reich officials to return to similar posts in 1951, effectively neutralized much of the far-right’s base that favored returning to political work over a unified far-right. The Electoral Law of 1953, which designated that parties had to obtain 5 percent of the national vote to achieve representation in the Bundestag, presented another serious roadblock for many far-right parties.

The DRP became the strongest far-right party after the SRP was banned, but it ultimately split following electoral defeat in the 1961 federal elections. In spite of this lull, the second wave of postwar extremism began on November 28, 1964, when the leaders of the DRP along with the

Deutsche Partei and the Gesamtdeutsche Partei (All-German Party) founded the

Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (National Democratic Party of Germany, NPD) with the goal of uniting disenfranchised conservative Germans by establishing a national conservative party without a Nazi past. Despite this, two-thirds of the party executive had been members of the Nazi Party, nearly 70 percent of whom occupied high positions in the regime or joined before

Hitler consolidated power. Though the NPD only had 473 party members at its founding, by

April of 1968, the party held 61 seats in seven of ten German state parliaments and some 600 representatives in regional and local councils. This was in part thanks to an economic crisis in

1966-67, in which unemployment rates rose for the first time since World War II, reaching

10 Barkin and Hamerow, “Germany”; McGowan, Radical Right in Germany, 150-152; Jaschke, “Extremism and Populism,” 64, 86-87; Mudde, Ideology, 25-26. 13 upwards of 700,000. As the crisis persisted, the NPD drew supporters, in accordance with

German far-right trends.11

Right-wing extremism was not only evident in the political sphere of Germany. As the

Nazi-ridden NPD gained momentum, student protests erupted in the late 1960s as the younger generation began to question the depth of their parents’ involvement in the Nazi system. One particular student was “Red Rudi” Dutschke, the leader of the Sozialistische Deutscher

Studentenbund (Socialist Students’ Federation). In April of 1968, 23-year-old Josef Bachmann shot 28-year-old Dutschke three times, claiming that, “since [he] cannot stand Communists, [he] felt [he] must kill Dutschke” (Crossland 1968). Attracting its adversaries, the NPD inadvertently benefitted from these movements, as well as the resignation of CDU chancellor , which led to the grand coalition of the CDU, SPD and the weak opposition Freie Demokratische

Partei (Free Democratic Party). The NPD’s slogan, Man kann wieder wählen, meaning “one can vote again,” referred to this grand coalition, suggesting that the NPD was then the only genuine right-wing opposition party. By 1969, over 70 percent of all organized right-wing extremists in

Germany were NPD members. This success did not go unnoticed by the German federal government, and several times in the late 1960s, it considered constitutionally banning the NPD because of its extremist character.12

Despite its rapid development, the NPD could not cross the five percent threshold in the

1969 federal elections or the state elections in , North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse the next year, evidence that the NPD’s growth was, at best, a form of protest. The 1969 federal

11 Jaschke, “Extremism and Populism,” 64-68; McGowan, Radical Right in Germany, 153-156; Mudde, Ideology, 25-28 12 Crossland, “Riots”; Der Spiegel, “Schüsse”; Jaschke, “Extremism and Populism,” 64-69; McGowan, Radical Right in Germany, 156; Mudde, Ideology, 25-28 14 elections marked the beginning of what was the end of the NPD’s national influence, domination of the West German right-wing extremist scene, and the second wave of postwar far-right extremism. The threat of a federal ban, lack of charismatic leaders and internal rivalry, and West

Germany’s damaged international image resulting from negative NPD press deterred potential supporters and motivated opponents. Furthermore, the improved economic situation and grand coalition between the mainstream parties only aided in the NPD’s demise, as some far-right members defected to the CDU after it adopted a more nationalist position in response to the

SPD’s desire for friendly relations with Soviet-influenced states. The more aggressive members called for extra-parliamentary activism, spurring around 400 members to form the extra- parliamentary group Aktion (Action New Right). At its height, the NPD criticized the modernizing sectors of West German society and the German collective guilt for World War

II and while harboring negative attitudes towards the global superpowers and advocating for self-determination for all Germans and a democratically-aligned nationalistic policy. Paralleling the NPD, members of the AfD have also criticized or supported those members who criticized German collective guilt and advocated for embracing German soldiers in World War II. As noted in the introduction, the AfD has also shown nationalistic tendencies, insinuating that Germany would be better off without international organizations and while these organizations did achieve some good things, they weren’t necessary to achieve them.13

After the fall of the NPD, a movement emerged in West Germany called the “New

Right,” which hoped to end left-wing exclusivity in intellectualism and separate themselves from certain fundamental elements of the “Old Right,” including the idolization of state nationalism and Hitler. The New Right instead promoted a “Greater Europe” from the Atlantic Ocean to the

13 Dearden, “Politician Attacks Memorial”; McGowan, Radical Right in Germany, 156-159; Mudde, Ideology, 28 15 Ural Mountains and publicized the national liberation struggle of oppressed people, including the

German victims of American and the Soviet imperialism. Despite the New Right’s conservative reorganization, its ideology reflected many of the Old Right nationalist concepts, such as its rejection of assimilation and mixed-race marriages, regarding them as detrimental to the laws of nature and the future of the white race. The New Right emphasized the importance of individual nations, their cultural heritage and the national community.14

Amid the development of the New Right, Gerhard Frey, who owned a publishing company and several newspapers, founded several far-right and action groups throughout the

1970s, including the functioning Aktion Neue Recht successor, the Deutsche Volksunion e.V.

(German People’s Union, DV), in 1971. In contrast to the growing influence of the DV, the

NPD continued to deteriorate, losing 97 percent of its seats and most of its members by the end of the decade. This resulted in the NPD’s repeated inability to meet the required thresholds for the Wahlkampfkostenrückerstattung, campaign cost refunds from the government, leading to the verge of bankruptcy several times. One factor in its decline was its demographics, as the youngest NPD members constituted just 5 percent of the total membership and had little influence. Many left in frustration and joined various neo-Nazi groups, one of which was the paramilitary Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann (Military-Sport-Group Hoffmann), founded in 1973 by

Nuremberg graphic artist Karl Heinz Hoffmann and other disaffected NPD members. Hoffmann saw Germany’s democracy as ineffective and instead advocated for an authoritarian state. WSG

Hoffmann wore military uniforms, engaged in target practice and tank maneuvers, and bought explosives with money from a bank robbery before the Ministry of the Interior banned it in 1980.

During its short existence, WSG Hoffmann emboldened several right-wing fanatics, including

14 McGowan, Radical Right in Germany, 159-160 16 21-year-old student and former member Gundolf Köhler. At the 1980 Oktoberfest in ,

Köhler detonated a bomb that killed 13 people and injured more than 200, making this attack the single deadliest attack in postwar Germany history.15

In an attempt to revive itself, the NPD founded regional single-issue parties in the early

1980s and presented them as independent protest movements, but by 1982, the party routinely received less than one percent of votes in state and parliamentary elections and its membership dropped to just over 6,000. With no legitimate far-right representation and increasing frustration with the mainstream parties’ support of European integration, many Union members left the parties after CSU leader Franz Josef Strauß broke the long-term party policy of radical opposition to the stabilization of the East German economy. Two defectors, and

Ekkehard Voigt, established a new party with Bavarian journalist Franz Schönhuber on

November 17, 1983, called Die Republikaner (The Republicans, REP). Considered a

Rechtsabspaltung, or right-wing breakaway, of the CSU, the media largely ignored the REP until

Schönhuber’s speeches became increasingly nationalistic. Schönhuber, a deputy, wanted the

REP to be a modern right-wing populist party, wheras Handlos, the party leader, wanted the party to be a national (bundesweite) version of the CSU that would be able to contest elections in the entire federal republic, not just Bavaria. This led to a power struggle in which Handlos accused Schönhuber of extremism before leaving the party, followed by Voigt a year later.16

By this point, Germans started to wonder how to deal with the ostensibly unavoidable guilt of Germany’s Nazi past. The German term for this is Vergangenheitsbewältigung, roughly meaning “coming to terms with the past,” and was the logical next step after . In

15 Braunthal, Extremism in Contemporary Germany, 32; Deutsche Welle, “1989 Oktoberfest attack”; Lee, “Strange Ties”; McGowan, Radical Right in Germany, 160, 182-183; Mudde, Ideology 27-29, 60-61 16 McGowan, Radical Right in Germany, 162; Mudde, Ideology, 29-31 17 the 1980s, new voices who didn’t know war or the way the old generation did entered the public sphere and enjoyed, as then-West German Chancellor coined in 1984, die Gnade der späten Geburt, “the grace of being born too late to be held responsible for the horror of the Nazi years” (Lawrence 100, 1998). While addressing the Israeli parliament in

1984, Kohl said, “I am speaking to you as someone who could not become guilty during the Nazi era because of the grace of late birth and the happiness of a special family home” (Krauel 2010).

While it is true that Kohl’s generation and younger had no control over being too young to face the realities of living in , this assertion is also somewhat problematic, because it incorrectly implied that the older Germans who voluntarily participated in the Nazi regime were merely victims of circumstance without choice. Such revisionist sentiments are dangerous as they distort the understanding of how these regimes functioned and maintained power. This generation, benefitting from hindsight and being emotionally removed from the experience of war and major effects of it, was more interested in who their parents were during the war and whether they were obligated to inherit the Nazi guilt as Germans. This concept materialized in what Germans dubbed Schlussstrich Debatten, debates that divided the generations over how to approach the Holocaust and World War II. The older generation was tired of dealing with the war decades later, while the younger generation had a general feeling of uneasiness about their country. One 22-year-old remarked, “I don’t think guilt feelings are appropriate, but I don’t think national pride is right either–I don’t have any” (Markham 1985). Kohl thought Germans should be proud of their country, saying there was “a need for normal patriotism” (Markham

1985). The REP claimed Vergangenheitsbewältigung kept Germany small and silent so the superpowers could continue world domination. After reunification, the REP demanded an 18 immediate stop to Vergangenheitsbewältigung. The DV took a similar position, wanting

Germany and the rest of the world to see the good and bad in Germany history.17

In June of 1985, Schönhuber was elected as chairman of the REP and , former NPD member, as secretary. This, coupled with Schönhuber’s Nazi past as a member of the Waffen-SS, the military branch of the SS, and trivializing Nazi and SS crimes in his wartime autobiography strengthened the right-wing extremist view of the REP. In 1986, after staying away from politics for nearly ten years, DV leader Frey founded his own political party, the

Deutsche Volksunion (German People’s Union, DVU). In another attempt to unite the far-right, the DVU made an electoral pact in 1987 with the NPD in which only one party would stand in each election and utilize candidates from both parties. This enhanced support resulted in the

DVU breaking the 5 percent threshold in the Bremen elections, making it the first far-right party with representation in 20 years. While the DVU and NDP joined forces, the REP continued to grow its national influence. By 1987 the REP had representation in all states except Saarland, but a majority of its members came from Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, a trend that persisted after reunification. After meeting the threshold requirement in the Bavarian state election of

1986, the REP used the 1.28 Million Deutschmarks it received from the

Wahlkampfkostenrückerstattung to develop tis organizational structure, which resulted in the membership doubling by December of 1988. This new support didn’t translate into votes, however, and their electoral success remained behind other extreme right parties.18

The DVU’s membership also increased at the end of the 1980s to 25,000, but much of the party’s funding came from other sources, including Frey himself, than the

17 Krauel, “späten Geburt”; Markham, “Old Germans and Young”; Mudde, Ideology, 57,70; Lawrence, “Vergangenheitsbewältigung,” 100-114 18 McGowan, Radical Right in Germany, 161-162; Mudde, Ideology 31-33, 57, 61-62, 70 19 Wahlkampfkostenrückerstattung. Though Frey spent no less than 17 million Deutschmarks in the 1989 election campaign, the REP completely overshadowed the DVU, resulting in a loss of

14 million Deutschmarks and led to Frey terminating the alliance with the NPD. Likely supplemented by a spike in unemployment in the 1980s, unease surrounding immigration, and the deepening of the European Union integration process, the rise of the REP and the DVU marked the beginning of the third wave of right-wing extremism in West Germany.19

The REP experienced a brief electoral breakthrough in 1989, in which the party gained several seats in various elections, including the West Berlin Senate, the European Parliament,

Bavaria, and Baden-Württemberg. This came as a shock to everyone, including the REP itself, as it failed to get enough candidates to fill the seats it earned. This spike in far-right support was paralleled in the European elections; some 2.7 million people voted right-wing extremist and the

REP alone accounted for over 2 million of the votes. The party failed to surpass the five percent threshold in any of the 14 elections it contested in 1990 and 1991. The REP also did poorly in the East and was banned by the Volkskammer, the East German parliament, between February and August 1990. These sustained defeats resulted in a series of arguments, scandals and splits within the party, culminating in an open power struggle between the moderate Schönhuber and extremist Neubauer. In May 1990, Schönhuber stepped down as party chairman, but was reinstated two months later, after Neubauer and his supporters were expelled or discharged. The party also gained a new vice-chairman, , a national conservative who left the party shortly in 1989 before returning to lead the council delegation in his hometown of .

After this, the party became smaller but more uniform in beliefs.20

19 Mudde, Ideology, 62 20 McGowan, Radical Right in Germany, 162-163; Mudde, Ideology, 34 20 Experiencing something of a comeback in 1992, the REP gained 10.9 percent of the votes and 15 seats in the Baden-Württemberg state elections, making it the third largest party in the state parliament. The victory was short-lived, however, as the REP could not clear the five percent threshold in the following elections, once again leading to clashes between the moderates and extremists. In December 1992, the party was put under surveillance of the

Bundesverfassungsschutz and ultimately listed as right-wing extremist in 1994. Several more

REP electoral failures during the 1994 Superwahljahr, a year in which many different elections take place, coupled with the Bundesverfassungsschutz monitoring, led to cooperation between the REP and DVU, angering REP members who had always distanced themselves from the blatantly extremist DVU. After Schönhuber was dismissed as leader and replaced by vice-chair

Schlierer, the party quickly split into competing camps of Schönhuber supporters, who wanted a united right wing, and Schlierer supporters, who wanted a clear distance from extremists. By

Schönhuber’s sudden retirement in 1995, party membership dropped to 16,000.21

The REP/DVU alliance had consequences for the DVU as well. Former rival Günter

Deckert being selected as NPD leader motivated Frey to form the alliance with the REP after disappointing electoral results and millions of Deutschmarks in debt. Party membership dropped when the DVU remained inactive in 1994 after Schlierer terminated the alliance, before losing representation in the Bremen state council and the state parliament in Baden-Württemberg in

1995. After the REP won 9.1 percent of votes in the Bavaria state election of 1996 and secured

14 seats in the state parliament, Schlierer was re-elected as party chairman by 77 percent of delegates. Though the party received 4.5 Million Deutschmarks from the state government and gained 500 members, support for Schlierer remained a point of contention as further election

21 Braunthaul, Extremism in Contemporary Germany, 44; Mudde, Ideology, 35-36 21 results remained low. After nearly clearing the five percent threshold in the state election in 1997, the debate on cooperation between right-wing extremist parties resumed.

Overall, these talks were not popular, as the moderates disliked Frey’s extremism while the extremists disliked his pragmatism. Despite dismal election results in the 1998 Berlin,

Brandenburg, and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania state elections and the parliamentary election, in the -Anhalt elections in April, the party won 12.9 percent of the votes and earned 16 seats, its biggest electoral victory and the first time a right-wing extremist party earned representation in the parliament of a former East German state. This success also brought nearly

3,000 new members to the party and a non-aggression pact with the REP in November.22

In spite of its desire to unite the German far right, the REP only looked like a broad political organization in theory. The party had several satellite groups, but these groups had very little reach; the largest was the student organization Republikaner Hochschulverband

(Republican College Association) which attempted to create a more intellectual atmosphere in the party, but it was only present in five of the 16 federal states. The REP also attempted to create a Republican Youth Association to replace the more extremist Young Republicans

Organization that existed from 1987-89, but it had little success despite the fact that one-third of the party’s members were under the age of 30. The REP also never really reached out to parties outside of Germany, as the party originally did not want to ally with officially registered right- wing extremist parties, and more democratic parties did not want to ally with it. Much like the

REP, the DVU was an organized political party in theory only. Considering its initial purpose was not to be a political party, but rather a means of uniting nationalists and the far-right, an organizational structure existed but was not functional. Because all members of action groups

22 Mudde, Ideology, 37, 63-64 22 within the DV movement were automatically registered as members of the DVU political party, the party appeared to have much more support than it really did. Furthermore, the DVU membership was primarily comprised of the readership of two right-wing newspapers that Frey owned, most of whom were believed to be over the age of 65.23

Nationalism has always been a primary ideological feature of the REP. It considers the

Volksgemeinschaft (ethnic community) the most important community and believes that only people born into an ethnic community should be members. The REP wanted Germany to only give nationality to foreigners prepared to embrace Germany as their homeland, a stance somewhat mirrored in the AfD Wahlprogramm. In the culture and media section, the AfD regards German culture as based on Christianity, antiquity, humanism and enlightenment, and claims that “endangers all of [German culture’s] achievements” (Programm

Bundestagswahl 2017). Schönhuber was always interested in large-scale assimilation and acknowledged that good Germans have come from the mixing of ethnicities in central Europe.

As its program later makes a point that the European struggle is between cultures of the West and Islam, the AfD most likely would not regard the cultures of Eastern Europe as infringing upon German culture.24

The REP rejected multicultural society, only wanting “true” asylum seekers and those who fully assimilate into German society to be permitted and treated as guests. Although

Wahlprogramm has sections for immigration and sections for Islam specifically, it mirrors the

REP’s stance, regarding immigrants as criminals and claims that immigrants from Africa and the

Arab world are going to outnumber Germany’s population and destabilize Europe. The party

23 Braunthal , Extremism in Contemporary Germany, 44; McGowan, Radical Right in Germany, 161; Mudde, Ideology, 37-38, 64 24 Alternativ für Deutschland, Programm Bundestagswahl, 47; Mudde, Ideology, 44 23 calls for an immediate closing of the borders, claiming that full assimilation is not possible, and that Germany should be able to decide what kind of people are coming in. The Wahlprogramm also states that foreigners should have to adapt to German culture and that citizenship can only be attained by those who have completed full assimilation (Programm Bundestagswahl 2017).

All of these sentiments are in line with the REP. As time went on, the REP formed a strong opinion on religion. In the 1987 party program, the party calls for Christian patriotism and claims that the preservation of Christian values is essential for the future of Germany. This is also reflected in the AfD Wahlprogramm, which explicitly considers Christianity an inseparable part of German ideals. It also cites the influx of Arab immigrants as destabilizing to German culture. The Wahlprogramm talks extensively about the threat of Islam and its danger for

Germany (Programm Bundestagswahl 2017).25

The REP supported the strengthening of the German state, including more powers and personnel for police forces that are supported by politicians. This is also concurrent with the

AfD Wahlprogramm, which states that the police force must be strengthened and lists several specific demands detailing how it should be carried out (Programm Bundestagswahl 2017). The

REP considers the rest of the world to be hostile towards Germany and thinks that Germany has a secondary status in the world, emphasized by the Cold War. This is evident in the February

1987 issue of the party paper, which states, “We Germans are the muzzled dancing bears of the political world arena, which are one time rewarded with cinnamon bread and then the other time disciplined by the whip. The animal trainers are in New York and Moscow” (Mudde 48, 2000).

The AfD shares similar sentiments. In the foreign politics section of the Wahlprogramm, the

25 Mudde, Ideology, 44-45, 51 24 AfD says that it is committed to a foreign policy geared towards German interests and mentions an “anti-Germany clause” in the United Nations charter (Programm Bundestagswahl 2017).26

The DVU’s ideology is much vaguer than the REP’s. The DVU regards patriotism as very important, and at the core of several sections of its party literature is the belief that German interest (the ethnic community and state) should be the only interest of the German government.

This was mostly tied to foreign policy, with the belief that Germany should not interfere in other countries’ matters and vice versa. This is similar to the AfD’s outlook. As previously mentioned, the AfD believes that preservation of German culture is very important and that a multicultural society poses a risk to this. As for a strong central state, the DVU is in favor of one, but it is not a prominent feature. Like the REP, the DVU wants a stronger police force in order to enforce higher sentences for serious crimes. Both the DVU and the REP are in line with the AfD, which calls for a stronger police force, as previously mentioned.27

While West Germany had a struggling albeit present far-right scene, did not experience the political involvement that West Germany did because the East German government excluded all political opposition. Some opposition groups were quietly permitted while others were secret or persecuted. None of these opposition groups engaged with nationalist issues enough to develop a nationalist agenda, so one really did not exist prior to reunification. There were groups throughout East Germany’s existence that idolized Hitler and national socialism, but they were persecuted by the state and never had the chance to effectively organize. Despite these repressive efforts by the state, East Germany still managed to contain a substantial right-wing extremist element, coincidentally supplemented by its own regime’s

26 Alternativ für Deutschland, Programm Bundestagswahl, 18, 24; Mudde, Ideology, 48, 51 27 Alternativ für Deutschland, Programm Bundestagswahl, 24; Mudde, Ideology, 69, 76 25 preferences: , orderliness, and so on. There were frequent outbreaks of xenophobia and racism against non-white people in East Germany, both citizens and foreigners, many of whom permanently lived in East Germany. Nationalists also vandalized Jewish cemeteries with anti-Semitic graffiti. After reunification, far-right extremism seemed to develop rapidly, because, according to the East German Government’s Commissioner for Foreigners

Almuth Berger, “before the change, everything concerning hostility towards foreigners was made taboo” (Binder 1990). After the conditions for this taboo were eliminated, the social pressure preventing xenophobic violence also disappeared.28

After reunification, the lives of the East Germans changed radically. While there were definitely some positive aspects of joining fellow Germans in the West, including travelling abroad, benefits of the welfare state, and the opportunities presented by the free market, there were also a lot of scary aspects of capitalism, like the lack of a guaranteed job and socio- economic status. East Germans also had to completely adjust to a new way of life deal with rising unemployment rates under the new capitalist structures as they soon discovered that they were much less developed and skilled than their Western counterparts. To make matters worse, the East Germans experienced these changes within a few years, whereas the West Germans had decades to adjust. Many people could not keep up with the speed of this transformation, which led to the creation of a new urban and rural underclass, most typically comprised of unskilled young men who could not find a place in the labor market. These developments in East

Germany provided a perfect environment to foster right-wing extremist organizations.29

28 Binder, “Racist Skinheads”; Botsch, “Skinhead-Subculture” 556-558 29 Jaschke, “Extremism and Populism,” 69 26 The reunification and subsequent existential crisis in East Germany coincided with the popularity of the skinhead movement. First appearing in the UK in the 1970s, the skinhead movement merged with racist subcultures and right-wing extremist movements to a certain extent in Germany. The movement’s music and activities in concert with the emerging internet attracted predominantly young men who opposed “un-German” demographics from people and foreigners to political leftists, Jews, and homosexuals. This ostracization resembled the

Nazis’ persecution of ethnic Germans with lifestyles contrasting to Nazi values in addition to those they deigned racially inferior. German political commentators generally agreed that the movement was at least partly a reaction to decades of scrupulous far-right repression, while some have suggested it was a way for youths to challenge their parents, as some of their fathers served in the Communist secret police. Less than a year after the fall of the East German government, an estimated 30,000 mostly young East Germans engaged in violent nationalism, committing anti-Semitic and Nazi-inspired attacks and hate crimes nearly every week. Because the surveillance department’s files were all sealed when it dissolved with the Communist government, observing these extremists was an arduous task. With its street action and rock music, the skinhead movement was the first time racism and right-wing extremism became a cultural lifestyle instead of only existing in the political sphere.30

The skinhead movement in the East was not the only youth-oriented exposure to right- wing extremism available to young Germans. Founded in 1952 in Wilhelmshaven by the SRP’s youth members, Wikingjugend, Viking Youth, was the oldest and largest right-wing youth organization in West Germany. Though it was an opportunity for social outlet, the Wikingjugend

30 Binder, “Racist Skinheads”; Jaschke, “Extremism and Populism,” 71; Holocaust Encyclopedia, “Documenting Numbers” 27 differed from the skinhead movement as it was a specific club intentionally founded to foster and promote far-right extremism while the skinhead movement was a more broad, overarching lifestyle that contained many social and cultural elements with far-right extremism as a central focus. The organization was scathingly anti-Semitic, advocating that Jews should wear the yellow star. With 400 members, Wikingjugend’s structure and organization resembled the

Hitlerjugend (), beginning indoctrination in kindergarten before passing a test at age

15 that included knowledge of the ’s lost territories. Exceptionally anti-Semitic, the organization weaved propaganda into everyday activities, like espousing Nordic superiority during camping trips and providing paramilitary training at winter sports camps. Wikingjugend’s ties to the political far-right were evident, advertising in the NPD’s official journal and associating with its youth sector while using facilities owned by an association with ties to eugenics research and top Neo-Nazis defense lawyers. In 1994, Minister of the Interior Manfred

Kanther outlawed Wikingjugend for wanting a revival of National Socialist Germany. The skinhead movement and groups like Wikingjugend, though different from each other, are evocative of Nazi organizations like the Hitlerjugend: far-right communities in which young

Germans could meet other people and engage in leisurely activities.31

Around the time of reunification and skinhead movement, the civil war in Yugoslavia led to an influx of asylum seekers in Germany, inciting an intense immigration debate. After World

War II, both East and West Germany created guest worker programs to rebuild their respective countries, attracting people from all over Europe as well as Vietnam and Africa. As time went on, guest workers and their families settled down, often remaining isolated in their own ethnic communities but living in Germany, nonetheless. In the beginning, there were enough jobs for

31 Braunthal, Extremism in Contemporary Germany, 84 28 both native Germans and foreigners, and any ethnic conflicts were not considered to be political or motivated by job competition. Amid rising unemployment rates in the 1980s, right-wing extremist groups launched xenophobic movements that precipitated an antagonistic view of foreigners among the German public and political violence in the 1990s. In some cases, such as in the Saxon coal town of Hoyerswerda, this violence extended beyond a street brawl. After skinheads hospitalized a group of Mozambicans in May 1990, youth gangs surrounded and attacked apartments occupied by foreign tenants the following autumn. Though German police arrested 83 people, they could not to contain the violence and 230 mostly African and

Vietnamese foreigners fled to safety at an army base. The residents of Hoyerswerda encouraged the youth gangs and joyously praised their homogenous town on national television.32

Rather than weakening right-wing extremism in the 1990s, banning organizations actually aided them, as members learned to adapt to and function around prosecution and surveillance. Comprised of just three people: Uwe Mundlos, Uwe Böhnhardt, and Beate

Zschäpe, the Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund (National Socialist Underground, NSU) was one such group. Zschäpe, who initially started out as a liberal punk, met Mundlos in the

Thuringian town of Jena in 1991 at age sixteen and Böhnhardt three years later at age nineteen.

Experiencing the crises of collapsing Communism and reunification during their developmental years, the trio spent their time fighting left-wing punks, wearing homemade SS uniforms to concentration camps, and creating concentration camp-themed games. They built homemade bombs in pursuit of bigger crimes after the advent of xenophobic political violence until police discovered 1.4 kilograms of TNT in their apartment in 1998 and they fled to the Saxon town of

Zwickau. Between 2000 and 2006, the NSU murdered a total of 9 people and wounded 22 in a

32 Binder, “Racist Skinheads”; Jaschke, “Extremism and Populism” 57-77; Kinzer, “Attacks on Foreigners” 29 bombing in the Turkish-popular Keupstrasse part of Cologne. Initially known as Die

Dönermorde (kebab murders), the most evident shared feature between the NSU’s victims is that all were Turkish except one, who was Greek, leading to suspicions of a Turkish gang culprit.

The lack of cohesion among the attacks, committed from to Nuremberg, prevented police from connecting them until they received a DVD in 2011 announcing the group’s existence. Police were then able to connect the murders by tracing the bullets to a single weapon, a typical tactic of right-wing extremist groups, and narrowed down the NSU to a cluster of terrorist cells. After a tip-off led them to a stockpile of weapons and the dead bodies of

Mundlos and Böhnhardt, Zschäpe turned herself in and was eventually charged with nine murders, an attack on police that included a murder, and two attempted murders by bombing.33

These trials have larger effects than bringing right-wing terrorists to justice. After decades of denying the existence of a far-right movement, Germans felt serious apprehension when confronted with the reality of its existence. After the denazification initiatives, banning dozens of extremist groups, and the Vergangenheitsbewältigung discussions, Germans thought they were finished with the far right, but these trials showed that this was far from true. In fact, during these trials, an economist, a publicist, and a disaffected politician were coming together to form the group Wahlalternative (Electoral Alternative) 2013, a group that would eventually develop into a political party called Alternativ für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD).

The NSU’s influence on German right-wing extremism pales in comparison to what this developing party would achieve.34

33 Jaschke, “Extremism and Populism” 80; Meaney & Schäfer, “Murder Trial” 34 Meaney & Schäfer, “Murder Trial”; Lachmann, “Anti-Euro Partei” 30

Chapter Three

Alternativ für Deutschland and Right-Wing Extremism’s Return to the German Federal Parliament

Shortly after the European Commission gave Greece €100 billion in financial aid, a group of disgruntled economics professors, journalists and entrepreneurs formed the Wahlalternative

2013 (Election Alternative 2013) political group, the precursor to the Alternativ für Deutschland

(Alternative for Germany, AfD) party. Centering around Professor Bernd Lucke and former publicist of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Konrad Adam along with Former Head of the

Hessian State Chancellery , the AfD wanted to deviate from mainstream politics and instead start discussions about dissolving the Eurozone, only the second German political group after the center-right Freie Wähler () to explicitly campaign against the federal government’s agreement to the Euro rescue policy. In its call for founding, the AfD declared, “the Federal Republic of Germany is in the worst crisis in its history. The Eurozone has proven unsuitable. Southern European countries are impoverished under the competitive pressure of the Euro. Entire states are on the brink of insolvency” (Lachmann 2013).35

The AfD’s earliest demands included dissolving the Eurozone, introducing the Deutsche

Mark, and curbing extensive contributions to foreign debts. Rejecting the accusation that they were a one-topic party, the AfD hoped to serve as a fresh political voice contrasting with traditional conservative and liberal parties. Emerging in February of 2013, by March, 26% of pre-election exit poll respondents claimed that they would be inclined to vote for any party suggesting that Germany leave the Eurozone, but only 6% claimed they would likely vote for the

35 Frymark, “German Euro-sceptics”, Lachmann, “Anti-Euro Partei” 31 AfD. The general public was satisfied with the anti-crisis policy and supported mainstream pro-

European Union and pro-Euro stances, while opinions that were critical of the European Union, or Eurosceptic, really only existed on the fringes of the political sphere. Lucke, who claimed that he was trying to save Europe, began harboring anti-Euro stances in 2010 after the first bailout for Greece, remarking that the policy was, “economically misguided…it made me feel homeless in my party” (Weinthal 2013).36

In the first two months of its existence, the party gained 7,000 members, including former

President of the Federation of German Industry (BDI) and leading Eurosceptic Hans-Olaf

Henkel, prominent Eurosceptic economists such as Stefan Homburg and Charles Blankart, and

Wilhelm Hankel and Karl Schachtschneider, two multiple plaintiffs in various euro proceedings at the German Constitutional Court of Justice. Other Eurosceptic parties in Germany had varying levels of success, because despite benefitting from the relatively stable and low cost of exports, many Germans were uncomfortable with the idea of bailing out Southern European countries like Spain, Greece, and Italy and had serious doubts about their ability to economically succeed. Furthermore, Germans were becoming increasingly discontented with being compared to Nazis whenever they tried to impose financial discipline on countries asking for help. Despite his hard opposition to the Eurozone, Lucke told the German magazine Focus that the AfD supports the European common market, just not with the European common currency. Apart from the Euro issue, the AfD espoused conservative social views, calling for the country to become more children- and family-friendly in consideration of its low youth population. This mirrored American-style conservatism, leading some journalists to label the AfD the German

36 Frymark, “German Euro-sceptics”, Lachmann, “Anti-Euro Partei”, Pop, “New anti-euro party”, Weinthal, “Tea Party” 32 Tea Party, referencing the fiscally conservative American Tea Party political movement within the Republican Party that emerged in 2009.37

Among the 7,000 members that flocked to the AfD in its first two months of existence, around 2,800 of them came from other parties. While these defections didn’t hurt the larger parties like the CDU/CSU or the SPD all that much, they definitely affected the smaller parties: the CDU’s junior coalition partner, the Freie Demokratische Partei (Free Democratic Party,

FDP), lost 587 members, and in the state of Hessen, the home of the German finance capital

Frankfurt, the FDP lost a seat in the regional parliament. At this point, 86 percent of the party’s membership was male, an overwhelming ratio. There was also an obvious geographic bias; nearly 30 percent of this support came from North Rhine-Westphalia, while another 40 percent came from Germany’s two most affluent states, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. The AfD generated the least interest in the poorer states of Eastern Germany, with less than eight percent of its support coming from the entire region. As evidenced by the information in Tables 1 and

238, there is an observable trend between the prosperity of a state and its support for the AfD: the three states that accounted for nearly 70 percent of the AfD’s initial support ranked among the top 40 percent of highest state GDP per capita and alone generated over half of Germany’s total

GDP in 2013. The AfD finding its most support from states with the highest levels of economic output mirrored its perception of Germany’s role in the Eurozone: the highest contributors were the most frustrated. The Eastern states where the AfD was least popular followed this same economic trend: they ranked the lowest in both state GDP per capita and contributions to

Germany’s GDP, which totaled only 15 percent from all six states and Berlin. These trends

37Boesler, “German professors”; Pop, “New anti-euro party”, Weinthal, “Tea Party” 38 Statistische Ämter, “Bruttoinlandsprodukt” 33 show at the party’s anti-Euro focused establishment, the higher the economic activity of a state, the more it supported the AfD.39

GDP 2013 GDP 2018 State State 2013 2018 (Euros) (Euros) Baden-Württemberg 15 15.1 Baden-Württemberg 40,024 46,279 Bavaria 18 18.5 Bavaria 40,265 47,946 Berlin 33,133 40,568 Berlin 4 4.3 24,815 29,411 Brandenburg 2.2 2.2 Bremen 44,456 50,389 Bremen 1 1 Hamburg 58,744 65,603 Hamburg 3.6 3.6 Hesse 40,430 46,719 Hesse 8.6 8.6 Mecklenburg- 23,807 27,905 Mecklenburg-Pomerania 1.3 1.3 Pomerania 8.7 8.7 Lower Saxony 31,545 37,118 North Rhine- North Rhine-Westphalia 21.5 20.8 34,665 39,358 Westphalia Rhineland-Palatinate 4.4 4.4 Rhineland-Palatinate 31,376 36,573 Saarland 1.1 1.1 Saarland 32,217 36,243 Saxony 3.7 3.7 Saxony 24,502 31,008 Saxony-Anhalt 2 1.9 Saxony-Anhalt 24,502 28,685 Schleswig-Holstein 2.9 2.9 Schleswig-Holstein 28,984 33,555 Thuringia 1.9 1.9 Thuringia 24,802 29,739 Table 2. Percent Each State Contributes to Table 1. GDP per Capita per State Germany's GDP

Though the AfD failed to overcome Germany’s 5 percent threshold in the 2013 federal elections, it came astonishingly close at 4.7 percent. These results were a staggering success for a party that only formed half a year before the election; for comparison, in the Green Party’s first run for the Bundestag in 1980, it had existed for two months longer than the AfD had in the 2013 federal elections but only earned a meager 1.5 percent of the vote. Despite this successful performance, Lucke was worried that the AfD would implode after failing to gain parliamentary representation, as there was still no staff infrastructure or even party platform despite its

39 Paulick, “Gaining Ground”; Statistische Ämter, “Bruttoinlandsprodukt” 34 membership of 16,000. Riddled with high fractionalization and rival feuds, the AfD only managed to survive because of Lucke’s leadership. The second-tier leaders were powerless without Lucke’s tenacious authority and lone ability to appeal to both local and national audiences, which largely contributed to the party’s success. The AfD’s outspokenness that was not found in mainstream parties also attracted voters; 83 percent of AfD voters indicated in an exit poll that the party at least names problems, like energy costs, foreigner dependency on the welfare system, and financing lazy Greeks, even though it offered no solutions. This overwhelming concurrence revealed that like Lucke, other Germans felt disenfranchised or ignored by established parties. The AfD would eventually need methods other than criticizing other parties’ solutions instead of offering its own, however, as it had no solid stance on state- level policies and anti-Euro positions would be unimportant in these elections.40

When the AfD began to attract right-wing populists, Germans naturally feared implications of the party’s developing success. An internet study conducted in 2013 by

Linkfluence, a Franco-German social media monitoring company, sought to answer these questions. The study consisted of two parts: an analysis of AfD and NPD supporters’ Facebook

“likes”, which revealed that AfD “likes” related to Euroscepticism but showed preference for democratic principles while NPD “likes” related to anti-Islamification, right-wing rock bands and the German military, and an evaluation of hyperlinks to and from the AfD’s various party pages, which revealed that AfD websites were not digitally associated with far-right extremist pages. Linkfluence determined the party to be right-centrist, but noted that the AfD still attracted right-wing populist, reactionary, and conservative interest despite little to no overlap between its politics and the NPD. As some right-wing populist circles saw the AfD as a legitimate

40 Der Spiegel, “Party AFD” 35 opportunity for political expression, right-wing populist websites that advocated for anti-

Islamification and stricter Eastern Europe immigration policies often linked to AfD content.

Furthermore, some AfD supporters wrote for , an ultra-right-wing newspaper notorious for its racism and fanatic nationalism. In addition to digital connections to the far- right, the anti-Islam Die Freiheit (Freedom Party) supported the AfD in the 2013 elections instead of running itself and urged other small, like-minded parties to do the same. Though Die

Freiheit lost 1,850 of its initial 2,600 members, an estimated third of whom went to the AfD, leader and former CDU member René Stadtkewitz said that supporting a realistic chance at representation was more important than unnecessary competition. The AfD, however, sought to distance itself from far-right extremism, criticizing fanatics and condemning anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia.41

As parties turned their attention towards the international stage, the Federal

Constitutional Court declared the European Parliament electoral threshold to be unconstitutional preceding its 2014 elections, claiming it deterred potential voters and infringed on parties’ rights to equal opportunities. This major change drastically increased the chances of unconventional representation in the European Parliament. Chairperson of the campaigning group Democracy

International Gerald Haefner supported this decision, noting the democratic importance of equal representation in elections. On the other hand, lawmakers from both the Bundestag and

European Parliament said that the resulting fragmentation and decreasing stable majority would make it harder for the chamber to function, an effect mainstream parties had long attributed to

41 Hebel, “Die Freiheit”; Heine, “Popular with Populists”; Weinthal, “Tea Party” 36 the demise of the Weimar Republic. As the largest national contingent, German parties securing just one percent of the vote could gain representation as an outcome of this decision.42

In preparation for these elections, the AfD shifted its image from Euroscepticism to supporting Germany and German culture and justified its bid to join a European unity organization by arguing that it only rejected a centralized European state, not a single market or open borders, and recognized that the resulting publicity could prompt a caucus of like-minded parties, despite most of them being right-wing populist. The AfD came in fifth place in Germany with 7.1 percent of the national vote and earned seven seats in the European Parliament. After entering the Parliament, a narrow majority of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) political group, formed by British Prime Minister David Cameron to contest the main center- right European People’s Party, voted to include the AfD along with far-right Danish and Finnish parties, making it the third largest group in the European Parliament. As Cameron emphasized his disappointment in the ECR’s decision and lack of support for the AfD, his strength within the group weakened and tensions heightened between him and Merkel, whose CDU/CSU was a driving force within the competing European People’s Party.43

After the 2014 European Parliament elections, the AfD had a number of successes in state elections, securing 9.7 percent of the vote in Saxony, 10.6 percent in Thuringia and 12.2 percent in Brandenburg, and polling up to 10 percent in a national opinion survey. Its luck continued into 2015, winning 6.1 percent of the vote in Hamburg and 5.3 percent in Bremen. Up until this point, the party had been steadily attracting voters away from the CDU, but internal disagreements about the extremity of the AfD caused a decline in national support. One instance

42 Demuth, “Top Court” 43 Benzow, “Party Revamps Image”; Bundeswahlleiter, “Land Results”; Nicolaou, “EU Parliament group” 37 that especially provoked such tensions was in December 2014 at an anti-Islam rally for the far- right nationalist group , Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident, in

Dresden. Going against his previous disapproval of racist and xenophobic behavior only a year earlier, Lucke encouraged the 10,000 protestors at this rally to voice their fears, while party leader Gauland called the AfD, “natural allies of [the PEGIDA] movement” (Withnall 2014).

Other political parties condemned Lucke’s comments, and even AfD deputy leader Hans-Olaf

Henkel advised party members not to join the protests. These divisions within the leadership intensified the infighting, which Lucke worried would negatively influence election results.44

Contrary to Lucke’s anxieties, the AfD’s election outlook improved in large part because of the 2015 refugee crisis, Europe’s largest since World War II that brought over 1.1 million asylum seekers from Western Balkan and war-torn countries to Germany, more than ever before and more than any other European country that year. The origins of the crisis remain somewhat controversial with many factors at play. First, the number of people in search of protection from persecution, violence, and human rights violations reached an all-time high. Second, Germany had been gradually liberalizing its refugee policy for several years and was one of the few

European countries to develop large-scale programs for admitting and offering legitimate opportunities to refugees in reaction to the Syria crisis, a major factor in itself. Since its beginning in 2011, the Syrian civil war left refugees with few opportunities, high cost of living and dwindling resources. Additionally, in 2014, Macedonia eased preventive restrictions that then opened a route to Europe through the Balkans that was faster, cheaper, and less dangerous than the traditional route through Libya to Italy. One reason refugees chose Germany in

44 Deutsche Welle, “Thuringia, Brandenburg”, Deutsche Welle, “Setback”, Freistaat Sachsen, “Wahlergebnisse”; Huggler, “anti-Islam protests”, Nardelli, “Hamburg election”; Withnall, “Tea Party” 38 particular was Merkel’s offer of temporary residence to all refugees, adding higher incentive to

Germany’s prosperity, social support, and already established migrant communities. Not all

Germans agreed with Merkel’s decision, including members of her own party.45

After Merkel’s policy declaration propelled the AfD’s national support into double digits, leaders had to decide whether the party should function as cooperative opposition, as Lucke wanted, or stick to populism and even go further to the right, as eastern wing leader by Frauke

Petry wanted. Petry approved of talks with PEGIDA and many AfD supporters agreed with her belief that Islam was totally alien to European democracy. In early July 2015, Petry was voted party leader, after which Lucke left the party because of its rising Islamophobia and xenophobia.

Two Members of European Parliament, including former Deputy Party Leader Hans-Olaf

Henkel, followed Lucke’s departure along with two state presidents, party deputy Joachim

Starbatty, and 2.5 percent of the party’s membership. Although Petry denied that the AfD shifted to the right, the mass exodus of members left only one moderate on the federal executive board and the media constantly mentioned Petry’s Islamophobia and anti-refugee rhetoric.

Moreover, in early 2016, the AfD announced a closer cooperation with the right-wing populist, national-conservative Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Freedom Party of , FPÖ), whose leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, shared Petry’s anti-Islam sentiments. FPÖ Chairman Petr

Bystron claimed this Blue Alliance, referring to the shared party color of the AfD and FPÖ, was for geographic reasons and to seek international cooperation with similar parties in Switzerland and the Czech Republic. After the formation of the Blue Alliance, the ECR ousted its two AfD members, Marcus Pretzell and , the granddaughter of Hitler’s finance minister who commented that police should be able to shoot women and children refugees. Before she

45 BBC News, “Migrant crisis”; Connolly, “open-door refugee policy”; Engler, “Refugee Crisis”; Sly, “8 reasons” 39 could be formally removed, however, Von Storch left on her own accord and instead went to the

Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy Group.46

In the 2016 state elections, the AfD entered four new state parliaments in addition to the five it was already in, earning a resounding 24.4 percent in Saxony-Anhalt and 21 percent in

Mecklenburg-Pomerania, in which the AfD ostensibly attracted voters away from the CDU and

SPD, and 15 percent in Baden-Württemberg, a state dominated by Merkel’s CDU since the end of World War II. As these elections were the first to take place after Merkel announced

Germany’s open-door policy, the motivations for these results were clear. In all three states, the

AfD gained most of its votes from previous non-voters, as many as 40 percent of its support in

Saxony-Anhalt, which candidate Andre Poggenburg noted the established parties failed to do.

Furthermore, 56 percent of all AfD voters in Saxony-Anhalt said they chose the AfD because of the refugee crisis. The 2016 AfD party manifesto solidified its anti-Islam stance, containing an entire chapter concerning Muslims that claimed that Islam is not compatible with the German constitution and called for bans on the minaret, the tower built into or adjacent to a mosque used for the Muslim call to prayer, and the burqa, a garment covering the body and face worn by women in some Islamic traditions. Germany’s Central Council of Muslims compared the AfD’s attitude towards Muslims to Hitler’s attitude towards Jews.47

Some AfD members’ actions bore a more direct resemblance to Hitler than the Central

Council of Muslims’ correlation. In early 2017, Thuringia member Björn Höcke received sharp criticism for his remarks about the Berlin Holocaust memorial. Addressing 500

46 Barkin, “Founder leaves”; Crisp, “Final straw”; Der Standard, “AfD und FPÖ”; Deutsche Welle, “AfD elects conservative leader”; EU Reporter, “von Storch leaves”; Europe Online, “Lawmaker evicted”; ntv, AfD meldet Hunderte Austritte”; Schneider, “Lucke und der Auszug”; The Atlantic, “Infighting Problem” 47 Bellon, “Muslims not welcome”; Oltermann, “Big gains”; RT, “AfD beats Merkel”; Zicht, “Landtagswahl 2013” 40 supporters of the Junge Alternativ Dresden, the Dresden chapter of the AfD’s youth wing, Höcke called for the country to take a more positive attitude towards its history and stop atoning for

Nazi crimes and said, in reference to the memorial, “Germans are the only people in the world who plant a monument of shame in the heart of their capital…the laughable policy of coming to terms with the past is crippling us” (Dearden 2017). Outrage immediately erupted in response to

Höcke’s comments, drawing criticism from the current and former Presidents of the Central

Council of Jews in Germany Josef Schuster and Charlotte Knobloch, Israeli ambassador to

Germany Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, and Vice President of the International Auschwitz

Committee Christoph Heubne. The Dresden Public Prosecutor filed a criminal complaint against him while several politicians from various parties called for disciplinary hearings and announced their desire to file sedition charges. Höcke deemed the reactions slanderous and threatened legal action against such accusations. This controversy split the AfD leadership, with Petry branding

Höcke as a burden, but prompting support from party deputy Alexander Gauland, who claimed that Höcke’s speech was taken out of context. Though the national party leadership decided to expel Höcke, the ultimate power to make the decision lay with the Arbitration Committee of the

AfD in Thuringia, which suspended the procedure by late August and had no foreseeable prospects of coming to a decision, especially considering that much of the party leadership was not interested in ousting Höcke.48

This was not the only time Höcke and his extreme ideas caused controversy. He was already exhibiting far-right ideologies in 2014, declaring that Germany’s government should only serve ethnic Germans. In September 2018, Höcke and fellow AfD member Andreas Kalbitz

48 Dearden “Politician attacks Memorial”; Deutsche Welle, “Expel state leader”, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, “AfD-Mann Höcke”, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, “Gauland offen”, The Atlantic, “Infighting Problem” 41 joined a silent march for the victim of the Chemnitz stabbing held by far-right protesters, including the anti-immigrant terrorist group Revolution Chemnitz. This marked the first time in the history of the Federal Republic that a political party in the Bundestag explicitly worked with a far-right extremist group, a feat that prompted nearly 60 percent of Germans polled to favor of placing the AfD under surveillance. Furthermore, Höcke’s book, Nie zweimal in denselben Fluss

(Never twice in the same river), has jarring ideas about Germany and uses language dangerously similar to that of the Nazis. He claims that a central goal of his party is to purge Germany of foreign people, writing, “in addition to protecting our national and European external borders, a large-scale process will be necessary” (Funke 2019). He asserts that this can only be achieved by force:

In the hoped-for turnaround phase [of the AfD coming to power], hard times are

ahead for us…above all, a new political leadership will have to endure several

moral tensions: it is committed to the interests of the indigenous population and

must in a likelihood take measures that run counter to their actual moral sense…I

am afraid that a policy of ‘well-tempered cruelty’ will not be avoided. Crises

threatening existence require extraordinary action. The responsibility for this is

borne by those who have brought about the necessity of these measures with their

unspeakable policies. (Funke 2019)

He also thinks Germans who go against his values should be excluded from Germany, stating,

“unfortunately we will lose a few parts of the population who are too weak or unwilling to participate” (Funke 2019). Höcke claims that Germany is at risk of extinction because of 42 multiculturalism and references a need for defense against Islam, insisting that concentration of power in a single individual “can put a broken community back in order” (Funke 2019).49

Höcke’s language advocates for state-sanctioned violence against ethnic and political enemies. This line of thinking more than parallels Hitler’s, it is practically an exact replication.

In 1919, Hitler wrote in a letter to soldier Adolf Gemlich that while in the short- term Jews should be deprived of civil rights, “the ultimate goal must be the uncompromising removal of Jews” (Hitler’s First Major Statement on Anti-Semitism, German History in

Documents and Images). The Nazis frequently used state-sanctioned violence against political enemies, filling the first concentration camps with Communists and Social Democrats and using the force of the paramilitary (SA) and Schutzschaffel (SS) to intimidate political opponents into cooperating with them before Hitler ordered a series of political executions to consolidate power in the 1934 Night of Long Knives. The proximity of Höcke’s ideas to Nazi fascism stumped even fellow party members when a reporter showed them Höcke’s quotes and asked whether the quote was from Höcke’s book or Hitler’s Mein Kampf. The quotes, “A few corrections and small reforms won’t be enough, but the German absoluteness will guarantee that we will tackle the matter thoroughly and fundamentally,” “Once the turning point has come, we

Germans will not stop half-way, and then the mounds of debris of modernity will be eliminated,” and “The longing of the Germans for a historical figure, who will once again heal the wounds of the people, overcome the strife, and put things in order is deeply rooted in our soul” (Vestring

2019), left the AfD members unable to answer, although one remarked that he, “would rather say from Mein Kampf but not from Mr. Höcke” (Vestring 2019). Interestingly, none of the politicians seemed to be offended that the reporter asked them to compare their fellow party

49 Connolly, “Chemnitz riots”; Funke, “Bürgerkrieg” 43 member to Adolf Hitler. Höcke seemingly did not take offense either, saying, “I think it’s good that we have politicians again, who have the courage to express themselves in an original way and use a language that sometimes is too poetic” (Vestring 2019).50

Petry’s disapproval of Höcke and attempts to put the AfD on a more pragmatic course exacerbated internal tensions and spurred accusations of trying to divide the party. Petry ultimately chose not to stand as the AfD’s leading candidate for chancellor in the 2017 federal election, her spot filled jointly by Alexander Gauland and , an economist, lesbian, and mother who joined the AfD because of its Eurosceptic foundations, but embraced right-wing populism since joining, prompting a further shift to the right before the 2017 federal elections.

The AfD’s candidacy composition reflected this far-right atmosphere: of the 396 Bundestag candidates, 47 explicitly expressed or did not distance themselves from right-wing extremist positions, five mourned the German Reich, seven used German Reich vocabulary and symbols,

15 relativized Germany’s role in World War II or wanted to recognize a “cult of guilt” (Stern

2017), and 30 tolerated right-wing extremist friends in their profiles or were members of corresponding groups.51

The AfD came in third place in the 2017 federal elections, earning 12.6 percent of the vote and entering the Bundestag for the first time. The CDU/CSU remained the largest group, earning 32.9 percent of the vote, a significant drop from their 2013 results of 41.5 percent. The

SPD remained the second largest party, earning 20.5 percent of the vote, another drop from its

25.7 percent in 2013. After the AfD, the FDP gained 10.7 percent, die Linke gained 9.2 percent,

50 German History in Documents and Images, “Hitler’s Statement”; Funke, Bürgerkrieg”; Holocaust Encyclopedia, “Documenting Numbers,” “Political Violence,” “Röhm Purge”; Vestring, “Höcke or Hitler?” 51 BBC News, “Election leaders”; Huggler, “Leader stuns party”; Stern, “Umfrage”; The Atlantic, Infighting Problem” 44 and the Alliance 90/Greens gained 8.9 percent. The 19th German Bundestag was comprised of

709 members, 92 of whom came from the AfD. These federal elections had very distinct demographics. Overall, the party attracted the least voters over the age of 60 and under the age of 30. The 2013 trend of overwhelmingly attracting men continued in 2017; male voters, who constituted 69 percent of the party’s support, were over 50 percent more likely than women to vote AfD. Working class support increased, particularly manual workers, who accounted for nearly one of every five AfD votes, while only seven percent of the AfD voters had college degrees. Founded by economists and professors, the AfD initially attracted a number of highly educated supporters, but those numbers stagnated over time while the party’s support among lower levels of education increased.52

One of the most astounding trends in the AfD’s 2017 voter demographics is the regional divide. 10.7 percent of Germans living in the West voted for the AfD, whereas 20.5 percent of

Germans in the East voted for the AfD; nearly 70 percent of the AfD’s supporters came from the

East and only 30 percent came from the West. Monetarily, the party had the broadest income distribution of all established parties, but an extraordinary minority of high earners. Overall, though, the AfD had the highest share of supporters who negatively described their economic situation, many viewing it as unfair. Dissatisfaction with their economic circumstances was the biggest incentive to vote AfD, drawing large support from minor parties and previous non- voters, as in the 2013 and 2016 elections.53

The AfD clearly gets substantial support from the East, a region much less economically successful than the West, as evidenced by the data on the GDP per capita per state, the percent

52 Arnett, “Who voted for whom”; Deutsche Welle, “Expel state leader”; German Bundestag, “Strongest group”; Maier-Borst et al, “German election” 53 Maier-Borst et al, “German election” 45 each state contributed to Germany’s GDP, and the German unemployment rate by state in Tables

1, 2, and 5 respectively. East Germany’s low affluence and high AfD support are not mutually exclusive. In the 2019 state elections, the AfD gained 30 percent of the vote in Lusatia, a region in eastern Saxony and southern Brandenburg. This region, particularly its mining industry, suffered economically after reunification with the rest of former East Germany, and regional economic plans only met marginal success. Based on aforementioned economic data and the election and state parliament data in Tables 3, 4, and 6, the AfD did well in economically struggling regions since 2016. The growing popularity of the AfD’s far-right beliefs has not gone unnoticed, either; at the eastern end of Lusatia in November 2019, the city council of

Dresden declared a Nazi emergency to highlight the need for resources to combat the severe right-wing extremist sentiments and violence among its population.54

Lusatia was by no means an isolated case when it came to economic struggle in the East.

The AfD stronghold along the Polish border was characterized by practical ghost towns with no shops and hardly any children. Lower wages and pensions often made Germans living in the

East feel like second-class citizens compared to the West, which also occupied the most powerful and influential positions in politics. East Germans did not understand how the government could accept refugees in good faith when they were still suffering from reunification effects three decades later, leading them to believe that the government cared more about refugees than its own citizens, a notion still prevalent today. Long-time Saxony Bundestag representative Antje Hermenau stressed the importance of economics in Saxony and believed that the AfD received protest votes because of the feeling that things were not working while the

54 Scholz, “Success in eastern Germany” 46 state premiers of Saxony and Brandenburg noted the AfD talked to constituents about problems, and promised to help.55

The AfD’s consistent success in the state of Thuringia suggests that it is more receptive to right-wing extremism. Thuringia’s state-level AfD leaders refusing to oust Höcke illustrates this, and furthermore, contrary to the national election data, the AfD gained a majority of its support from voters under the age of 30 in the 2019 regional elections, suggesting that a new, younger generation who hasn’t experienced the turbulence of division and reunification is nonetheless in line with AfD beliefs. The refugee crisis in 2015 emboldened the far-right, according to Germany’s domestic intelligence service annual report, as violent anti-Semitic crimes went up 71 percent from the previous year. The surge in far-right extremism did not plateau after the refugee crisis either; in June 2019, the pro-immigration politician Walter

Luebcke was murdered outside his home by far-right extremists, some of the over 32,200 identified in Germany in 2019, a figure that is more than a third higher than the 24,100 counted in 2018. German authorities attribute this spike to including AfD-affiliated groups for the first time in 2019, such as Höcke’s Der Flügel AfD faction and the Junge Alternative youth wing.56

Anetta Kahane, founder of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation which works to combat racism, right-wing extremism, and throughout Germany, suggests that far-right parties build upon the previously existing radical attitudes that intensified after reunification. In this way, the AfD provided an outlet previously unavailable to already established ideals instead of introducing completely new ones. Kahane accredits extremism in former East German states to the historical lack of infrastructure, “in the West there are large churches, and labor unions:

55 Hucal, “30 years after”; Scholz, “Success in eastern Germany” 56 Deutsche Welle, “Number of extremists rose” 47 powerful institutions that ensure a certain kind of social stability. In the East after reunification, we didn’t have that. Civil society infrastructure has to be built from the ground up and be made stable so that they can withstand right-wing extremism” (Hucal 2019).57

The connection between economic hardship and far-right support is not unique to

Germany. In a study about right-wing extremism during the Great Depression published in The

Journal of Economic History, de Bromhead, Eichengreen, and O’Rourke confirmed the existence of a link between right-wing extremism and economic adversity using data from 171 elections in

28 countries between 1919 and 1939. In a study about the political aftermath of financial crises published in the European Economic Journal, Funke, Schularick, and Trebesch found that far- right votes increase by one-third in the five years after systemic banking distress, and that this far-right presence often places blame on minorities or foreigners using data covering 140 years from 20 advanced economies and over 800 general elections. These findings were consistent before and after World War II at both the regional and federal levels and were especially pronounced after the economic crises of the 1920s and 1930s and 2008. The far-left on average did not benefit equally from the crises as the far-right did. Another study about the political aftermath of financial crises published in the American Economic Journal by Trebbi, Mian, and

Sufi shows that voters become more ideologically polarized and opposition coalitions become larger around financial crises. Conversely, in a study published in the Socio-Economic Review,

Swank and Betz analyzed national elections in 16 European countries from 1981 to 1998 and found that universal welfare states not only reduce support for far-right populist parties overall,

57 Hucal, “30 years after” 48 but also exhibit no correlation between globalization and radical right-wing populist support, whereas a correlation exists in countries with occupationally-based welfare.58

The AfD’s development in Germany illustrates these trends. As evidenced by state GDP per capita, all of the former East German states rank the lowest in both 2013 and 2018, in 2013 not even reaching €25,000 and with only one state surpassing €30,000 in 2018. These states also contribute the least to Germany’s GDP. Since 2013, Saarland and Bremen have been the only

Western states with contributions lower than Eastern states, but even so, Mecklenburg-

Pomerania only contributes 0.2 percent more, and Saxony, the highest Eastern contributor, only contributes 2.6 percent more. These two results show the consistent lack of economic activity in these regions compared to the West since 2013, corresponding to their desolate economies and support for the AfD, documented in Table 359. Though AfD support overall was higher in

Eastern Germany than Western Germany in state elections before 2016 (before Merkel’s open- door policy), too few states had an election that included the AfD to be able to make an accurate observation about general AfD support prior to 2016 alone, but there is a clear AfD preference in the East after 2016. Furthermore, as evidenced in Table 460, in the 2013 federal elections, there was no significant difference in AfD support between Eastern states and Western states; in fact, some Western states even had higher levels of support in 2013 than Eastern states. In the 2017 federal elections, however, there is observably higher support in Eastern states. All five Eastern states had the highest levels of support for the AfD in 2017, and there was a substantial gap of

6.4 percent between the Eastern state with the least support and the Western state with the most

58 de Bromhead et. al., “Political extremism”; Funke et. al., “Financial crises”; Jaschke, “Extremism and Populism” 86-87; Mian et al., “Resolving debt”; Swank and Betz, “Globalization” 59 Bundeswahlleiter, “Final Results” 60 Wahlrecht.de, “Wahlergebnisse” 49 support. This surge of support reveals that Germans were more responsive to racist rhetoric than the monetary conservativism that appealed relatively equally across Germany in its first election and even garnered very little support from the East in its first two months of existence. Though nationwide popularity increased in both state and federal elections once the AfD adopted an anti-

Islamic and xenophobic platform after the refugee crisis, support levels rose disproportionately high in the East. Since the economic situations in the East and West remained the same relative to each other since the AfD’s inception, the Eastern states must have responded to the racist and xenophobic far-right sentiments the AfD espoused.

State Before 2016 After 2016 State 2013 2017 Baden-Württemberg (2016) 15.1 Baden-Württemberg 5.2 12.2 Bavaria (2018) 11.6 Bavaria 4.2 12.4 Berlin (2016) 14.2 Berlin 4.9 12 Brandenburg (2014, 2019) 12.2 23.5 Brandenburg 6 20.2 Bremen (2015) 5.5 Bremen 3.7 10 Hamburg (2015) 6.1 Hamburg 4.1 7.8 Hesse (2013) 4.1 13.1 Hesse 5.6 11.9 Mecklenburg-Pomerania (2016) 20.8 Mecklenburg-Pomerania 5.6 18.6 Lower Saxony (2017) 6.2 Lower Saxony 3.1 9.1 North Rhine-Westphalia (2017) 7.4 North Rhine-Westphalia 3.9 9.4 Rhineland-Palatinate (2016) 12.6 Rhineland-Palatinate 4.8 11.2 Saarland (2017) 6.2 Saarland 5.2 10.1 Saxony (2014, 2017) 9.7 27.5 Saxony 4.2 27 Saxony-Anhalt (2019) 24.3 Saxony-Anhalt 4.2 19.6 Schleswig-Holstein (2017) 5.9 Schleswig-Holstein 4.6 8.2 Thuringia (2014, 2019) 10.6 23.4 Thuringia 6.2 22.7 Table 3. Percent of AfD Votes in State Elections Table 4. Percent of AfD Votes in Federal Elections

Research also shows a link between unemployment and right-wing extremism. A study by Golder published in Comparative Political Studies found that according to data from 19 50 countries and 165 national elections, while extreme-right populist parties benefit from immigration regardless of unemployment levels, unemployment levels only affect extreme-right populist party support when immigration is high. The first trend is observable in Germany: nationwide support for the AfD rose in both federal elections and state elections after the refugee crisis. As demonstrated in Table 561, while some Western states had higher unemployment rates than Eastern states, all of the Eastern states were in the highest 50 percent of state unemployment rate, a trend consistent between 2013 and 2020. Yet, it was not until after the refugee crisis that the Eastern states started supporting the AfD significantly more than the Western states.

Furthermore, in a study published in the Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Falk, Kuhn, and

Zweimüller studied state-level data of right-wing extremist crime rates from Eastern and Western states between 1996 and 1999 to investigate whether the substantially higher Eastern German unemployment rates could explain the large difference in right-wing extremist crime rates between Eastern and Western states. Falk et al estimated the impact of unemployment on right- wing crime separately for high and low unemployment levels and found that unemployment had an effect on right-wing crime in states with high unemployment in both regions, but there was no such relationship for states with low unemployment. This study revealed not only that right- wing criminal activities occur more frequently when unemployment is high, but that it is not an

East German phenomenon. Since Golder concluded that high unemployment levels only conditionally affect extreme-right support while Falk et al did not, it may seem like these two studies contradict each other, but it is important to note that Golder studied data on parties while

Falk et al studied data on crimes, and Golder included an extra variable, so it is possible that the presence or absence of this variable could change the results. Furthermore, Falk et al discovered

61 Statista, “Arbeitslosenquote” 51 that total unemployment predicts right-wing crime better than youth unemployment. Since right- wing criminals are typically young men between the ages of 15 and 25, youth unemployment rates should logically correlate to right-wing crime rates more directly. Falk et al therefore surmises that the actual unemployed people are not necessarily the ones committing the crimes, or at least are not the only ones doing so. Perhaps, then, the fear of unemployment alone is enough to become susceptible to far-right ideology.62

State 2013 2020 Baden-Württemberg 4.1 3.5 Bavaria 3.8 3.3 Berlin 11.7 8.2 Brandenburg 9.9 6 Bremen 11.1 10.3 Hamburg 7.4 6.4 Hesse 5.8 4.7 Mecklenburg-Pomerania 11.7 7.7 Lower Saxony 6.6 5.3 North Rhine-Westphalia 8.3 6.8 Rhineland-Palatinate 5.5 4.7 Saarland 7.3 6.6 Saxony 9.4 5.7 Saxony-Anhalt 11.2 7.6 Schleswig-Holstein 6.9 5.4 Thuringia 8.2 5.7 Table 5. Unemployment Rates in German States This hypothesis from Falk et al. mirrors the events from the 1990s. Labor market crises and rising unemployment rates in the 1980s provoked xenophobic far-right campaigns in both

East and West Germany before escalating to physical street violence in the 1990s. One of the most common explanations for this xenophobia was that immigrants and foreigners were competing with domestic workers for employment in Germany. This justification highlights the

62 Falk et al., “Unemployment”; Golder, “Variation in Success” 52 effect of unemployment on far-right support: many of these immigrants lived and worked in both countries since the 1950s because of migrant worker programs, but it was not until economic ramifications of reunification 40 years later that Germans saw them as competition.63

Fear of unemployment is crucial to the far-right, as one of the main recruitment techniques right-wing extremists use is exploiting social concerns; indeed, unemployment and social fears were among the main factors that led to the rise of National Socialism. The success of this technique is evident in the AfD’s ability to mobilize non-voters, particularly when the federal government was able to suddenly provide foreigners with resources the East Germans had needed but not received for decades. The high levels of success from exploitation show that a correlation between economic hardship and far-right extremism exists, but this is a trend, not a dependency. Support for the AfD increased in both state and federal elections throughout

Germany after the refugee crisis and the AfD’s platform shift to racism and xenophobia, so responding to racism more than Euroscepticism was not unique to the East. And, while the AfD generally fares better in the East, its support still trails that of mainstream parties. Moreover, as evidenced by the Blue Alliance and the European Parliament’s willingness to work with far-right parties like the AfD, far-right extremism is gaining popularity across Europe. The opportunity for exploitation is the key factor in the link between economic hardship and far-right extremism.

East Germans are not necessarily any more racist than West Germans, but since the economic prosperity cleavage is regional, the East had more anxieties for the AfD to exploit, giving it a higher chance of success in the East from the start.64

63 Jaschke, “Extremism and Populism,” 86-87 64 Ibid. 53 The AfD’s exploitation methods resemble typical right-wing populist strategies. Though right-wing populism looks different across the globe, there are some overarching features. The main goal of populism is to create a juxtaposition of a corrupt establishment and the people. The

AfD did exactly this by saying and advocating for things the established parties did not. In right- wing populism, the “us” is the everyday citizens (and ostensibly the party in question), and the

“them” is foreigners and people who sympathize with them. Right-wing populists also utilize negativity as a major part of their political presence, a hallmark AfD tactic from criticizing other parties’ policies to warning against Islamization and multiculturalism. Right-wing populists also tend to have a love/hate relationship with political correctness, on the one hand swearing it off, and on the other hand gaining a great deal of media attention for breaking taboos and staging scandals. The AfD certainly has no shortage of scandals covered by the media, from being associated with PEGIDA, to being voted out of European Parliament coalitions, to criticizing a

Holocaust memorial. This relationship with political correctness parallels Hitler’s 24-day trial in 1923 that got him nationwide media attention.65

Though the AfD began as a Eurosceptic Party, it attracted far-right extremists since its inception and quickly transformed into a far-right party based on xenophobic and anti-Islam principles. Like other far-right parties in Germany before it, the AfD exploited social fears but was significantly more successful in the economically depressed East, especially after the refugee crisis of 2015 heightened anti-immigration tensions. Several scientific studies confirm the relationship between economic hardship and far-right tendencies, which, considering German state and regional statistics, explains why the AfD is more successful in the East.

65 Greven, Rise of Right-wing populism 54

Chapter Four

Conclusion

The analysis of right-wing extremism in postwar Germany revealed much about how these parties function. Though a century has passed since the NSDAP was founded, many of the party’s core beliefs still exist in Germany today, including German exclusivity, racism, and opposing multinational organizations. Both parties exploited social fears amid economic peril, successfully mobilizing former non-voters and steadily gaining influence in the German government. The denazification efforts of the immediate postwar years successfully removed the symptoms of far-right extremism but failed to address the causes, allowing the conditions that foster this extremism to persist and produce several far-right movements, each learning from its predecessor’s mistakes and adapting to federal surveillance.

The Nazi regime was instrumental in shaping the divided postwar German societies. In the West, the Allied Powers instituted measures to prevent the rise of far-right movements, including licensing laws and an election threshold. However, several groups learned to operate extralegally and avoid consequence. Moreover, the West German government’s desperation to deny the existence of a far-right movement resulted in subpar monitoring of far-right groups, leading to events like the 1980 Oktoberfest bombing. Far-right social and paramilitary groups were also able to exist in West Germany, some resembling Nazi youth organizations.

The Communist regime in the East banned legitimate opposition parties and groups, leading Germans to rally around a sense of far-right nationalism that evolved into a lifestyle of social clubs and rock bands rather than traditional political associations. After reunification and its economic fallout, this far-right nationalism intensified and led to street violence, riots, and a 55 racist right-wing terrorist cell. The Nazi regime also affected German culture and the way

Germans saw themselves; because of the rampant nationalism displayed throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, Germans of later generations felt they could not have a sense of national pride.

From the collective guilt of not knowing how to approach the realities of their family’s or country’s past, an entire genre of novels and movies emerged. Even today, Germans and

Europeans use the Nazis as a standard against which to measure right-wing actions, constantly comparing politicians or policies to the Nazis, even when these accusations are not legitimately comparable.

Economics plays a large role in the rise of the far-right, a trend that has been observable for the past century. From the Nazis to the AfD, far-right extremist parties have consistently experienced a surge in membership following economic adversity. Various studies analyzing different sets of data all confirm the overarching correlation between economic hardship and far- right support. The AfD’s development complements these studies well, nearly perfectly following the expected trajectory of such a party in such circumstances. Through a combination of exploiting social fears and breaking from the norm of the established political parties, the AfD has been able to capitalize on the racist and xenophobic sentiments that have long existed in

Germany to mobilize the disadvantaged and seemingly forgotten former East Germans to gain influence in Germany and Europe in an astoundingly short amount of time.

56 Appendices

Appendix A: GDP per Capita for each State

Figure 1. Gross Domestic Product per Inhabitant in Germany by Federal State, 2013 Visual

57

Figure 2. Gross Domestic Product per Inhabitant in Germany by Federal State, 2018 Visual 58

Figure 3. GDP Per German State Graph 59 Appendix B: Percent Each State Contributes to Germany’s GDP

Figure 4. Percent Each State Contributes to Germany's GDP, 2013 Visual 60

Figure 5. Percent Each State Contributes to Germany's GDP, 2018 Visual 61

Figure 6. Percent Each State Contributes to Germany's GDP Graph 62 Appendix C: Unemployment Rates in Germany

Figure 7. Unemployment in German States, 2013 Visual

63

Figure 8. Unemployment in German States, 2020 Visual 64

Figure 9. Unemployment Rate in German States Graph 65 Appendix D: State Election Data

Figure 10. Percent of AfD Votes in State Elections Before 2016, Visual

66

Figure 11. Percent of AfD Votes in State Elections After 2016, Visual 67

Figure 12. Percent of AfD Votes in State Elections Graph 68 Appendix E: Federal Election Data

Figure 13. AfD Support in German Federal Elections, 2013 Visual

69

Figure 14. AfD Support in German Federal Elections, 2017 Visual 70

Figure 15. AfD Support in German Federal Elections Graph 71 Appendix F: Current AfD Representation in State Parliaments

Figure 16. Current (February 2020) AfD Representation in State Parliaments Visual

72 State Percent Seats Baden-Württemberg 12.58 18/143 Bavaria 9.75 20/205 Berlin 13.75 22/160 Brandenburg 26.1 23/88 Bremen 3.57 3/84 Hamburg 4.96 6/121 Hesse 13.1 18/137 Mecklenburg-Pomerania 19.71 14/71 Lower Saxony 6.2 5/73 North Rhine-Westphalia 6.53 13/199 Rhineland-Palatinate 11.88 12/101 Saarland 5.88 3/51 Saxony 31.93 38/119 Saxony-Anhalt 24.14 21/87 Schleswig-Holstein 6.84 5/73 Thuringia 24.44 22/90 Table 6. Current (February 2020) AfD Representation in State Parliaments (Statista)

Figure 17 . Current (February 2020) AfD Representation in State Parliaments Graph 73 Appendix G: Map of Germany

Figure 18. Map of Germany 74

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Sabine von Mering and Timothy Wyman Mccarty, London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2013. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pensu/detail.action?docID=1221491. Jung, Alexander. “Germany in the Era of Hyperinflation.” Der Spiegel. 14 August 2009. https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/millions-billions-trillions-germany-in-the- era-of-hyperinflation-a-641758.html Kinzer, Stephen. “A Wave of Attacks On Foreigners Stirs Shock in Germany.” The New York Times. 1 Oct. 1991, https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/01/world/a-wave-of-attacks-on- foreigners-stirs-shock-in-germany.html. Kizilirmak, Bayram. “Historical Franco-German Rivalry: From Struggle to European Integration.” Ankara University Institute of Social Sciences. 22 May 2015. https://www.academia.edu/27299669/HISTORICAL_FRANCO- GERMAN_RIVALRY_FROM_STRUGGLE_TO_EUROPEAN_INTEGRATION Knight, Ben. “Violence in Chemnitz as Leftist and Far-Right Protesters Clash.” DW, 27 Aug. 2018, https://www.dw.com/en/violence-in-chemnitz-as-leftist-and-far-right-protesters- clash/a-45250620. Knox, Philander C. Treaty of Versailles. [Washington, Govt. print. off, 1919] Web. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, lccn.loc.gov/43036001. 79 Krauel, Torsten. “Die Gnade einer späten Geburt.” Die Welt, 3 April 2010. https://www.welt.de/welt_print/politik/article7034675/Die-Gnade-einer-spaeten- Geburt.html Lachmann, Günther. “Neugründung: Anti-Euro-Partei Geißelt Die Politik Der Kanzlerin.” Die Welt, 3 Mar. 2013, https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article114091447/Anti-Euro- Partei-geisselt-die-Politik-der-Kanzlerin.html. 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Meaney, Thomas, and Saskia Schäfer. “The Neo-Nazi Murder Trial Revealing Germany's Darkest Secrets.” The Guardian. 15 Dec. 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/15/neo-nazi-murders-revealing-germanys- darkest-secrets. Mian, Atif, Amir Sufi, and Francesco Trebbi. “Resolving Debt Overhang: Political Constraints in the Aftermath of Financial Crises.” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 6 no. 2 (2014): 1-28. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1257/mac.6.2.1. Mudde, Cas. The Ideology of the Extreme Right. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 2000. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt155j8h1. Nardelli, Alberto. “Hamburg election: AfD enters first parliament in West Germany, CDU at record low.” The Guardian. 16 February 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2015/feb/16/hamburg-election-afd-enters- first-parliament-in-west-germany-cdu-at-record-low Nicolaou, Anna and Luke Barker. “Anti-euro German AfD joins Cameron's EU parliament group.” Reuters. 12 June 2014. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-britain- parliament/anti-euro-german-afd-joins-camerons-eu-parliament-group- idUSKBN0EN0ZK20140612 ntv. “Haftbefehle Nach Messerstecherei Erlassen.” 28 Aug. 2018, https://www.n- tv.de/politik/Haftbefehle-nach-Messerstecherei-erlassen-article20593168.html. ntv. “Nach “Richtungsentscheidung” AfD meldet Hunderte Austritte.” 7 July 2015. Retrieved 1 February 2020. https://www.n-tv.de/politik/AfD-meldet-Hunderte-Austritte- article15461321.html Oltermann, Philip. “Anti-refugee AfD party makes big gains in German state elections”. The Guardian. 13 March 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/13/anti- refugee-party-makes-big-gains-in-german-state-elections 80 Paulick, Jane. “German Euro-Skeptic Party Gaining Ground”. Spiegel Online International: German Election Blog. 5 May 2013. https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/new- party-alternative-for-germany-draws-new-members-away-from-rivals-a-898524.html Pop, Valentina. “New anti-euro party forms in Germany.” EUobserver. https://euobserver.com/political/119366 RT. “Right-wing AfD beats Merkel party in regional elections – exit polls.” 4 September 2016. https://www.rt.com/news/358228-afd-germany-state-elections/ Schleswig-Holsteinischer Landtag. “Der 19. Schleswig-Holsteinische Landtag.” 2020. https://www.landtag.ltsh.de/parlament/der-19-lt/ Schneider, Jens. “Lucke und der Auszug der Gemäßigten”. Süddeutsche Zeitung. 6 July 2015. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/afd-vor-spaltung-lucke-und-der-auszug-der- gemaessigten-1.2553174 Scholz, Kay-Alexander. “What drives the far-right AfD's success in eastern Germany?” Deutsche Welle. 2 September 2019. https://www.dw.com/en/what-drives-the-far-right- afds-success-in-eastern-germany/a-50264353 Sly, Liz. “8 reasons Europe’s refugee crisis is happening now.” The Washington Post. 18 September 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/18/8- reasons-why-europes-refugee-crisis-is-happening-now/ Statista. “Arbeitslosenquote in Deutschland nach Bundesländern.” January 2020. https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/36651/umfrage/arbeitslosenquote-in- deutschland-nach-bundeslaendern/ Statistische Ämter des Bundes und der Länder. “Bruttoinlandsprodukt—in jeweiligen Preisen— 1991 bis 2018.” Volkswirtschaftliche Gesamtrechnungen der Länder VGRdL. 29 March 2019. https://www.statistik- bw.de/VGRdL/tbls/tab.jsp?rev=RV2014&tbl=tab01&lang=de-DE#tab01 Statistisches Bundesamt. Statistische Ämter des Bundes und der Länder. “Regionalatlas Deutschland Indikatoren des Themenbereichs “Arbeitslosigkeit”.” 2020. https://www- genesis.destatis.de/gis/genView?GenMLURL=https://www- genesis.destatis.de/regatlas/AI008-1.xml&CONTEXT=REGATLAS01#linkTarget1 Stern. “SPD fällt in Umfrage auf 20 Prozent”. 14 September 2017. https://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/wahl-2017--norbert-lammert-hat-eine-wichtige- botschaft-fuer-uns-alle-7428928.html Swank, Duane and Hans-Georg Betz. “Globalization, the Welfare State and Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe.” Socio-Economic Review 1, no. 2 (05, 2003): 215-245. http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest- com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/docview/60599489?accountid=13158. The Atlantic. “Germany’s Far-Right Populists Have an Infighting Problem.” 22 September 2017. Retrieved 1 February 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/09/germany-afd-petry-populist- merkel-election/540444/ The Local. “Hooligans Attack Migrants in Chemnitz after Stabbing at City Festival.” 27 Aug. 2018, https://www.thelocal.de/20180827/hooligans-attack-migrants-in-chemnitz-after- stabbing-at-city-festival. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. 4 February 2019. 81 https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims-of- the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Nazi Party Platform.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. 20 November 2019. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-party-platform United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Nazi Political Violence in 1933.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. 18 June 2019. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi- political-violence-in-1933 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Röhm Purge.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. 10 February 2020. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/roehm-purge Vestring, Bettina. “Höcke or Hitler?” Berlin Policy Journal, 18 September 2019. https://berlinpolicyjournal.com/hocke-or-hitler/ Weinthal, Benjamin. “The Rise of Germany’s Tea Party.” Foundations for Defense of Democracies. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2013/05/03/the-rise-of-germanys-tea-party/ Wernette, Dee R. “Explaining the Nazi Vote: The Findings and Limits of Ecological Analysis.” Kean College of New Jersey, July 1976. https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/50909/134.pdf?sequence= Withnall, Adam. “Germany sees ‘visible rise’ in support for far-right extremism in response to perceived ‘Islamisation’ of the West.” The Independent. 5 December 2014. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-sees-visible-rise-in-support- for-far-right-extremism-in-response-to-perceived-islamisation-9926264.html Zicht, Wilko and Matthias Cantow. “Wahlergebnisse”. Wahlrecht.de. 27 October 2019. http://www.wahlrecht.de/ergebnisse/index.htm Zicht, Wilko et. al. “Landtagswahl am 22. September 2013 in Hessen.” Wahlrecht.de. 22 September 2013. http://www.wahlrecht.de/news/2013/landtagswahl-hessen-2013.html

ACADEMIC VITA

ALLISON ELIZABETH RUMAN

Education The Pennsylvania State University; University Park, PA August 2016 — May 2020 • Bachelor of Arts in German, Political Science, and Classics & Ancient Mediterranean Studies • Minors in History and Global & International Studies • Certificate in Holocaust & Genocide Studies

Honors and Awards • Pennsylvania State University Paterno Fellow • Pennsylvania State University Schreyer Honors College • Dean’s List all semesters • Member of National Honor Societies o Liberal Arts & Sciences; Political Science; German; History

Association Memberships/Activities Penn State Blue Band Member, Squad Leader, Formal Committee Member • Interpreted halftime show marching drill into verbal instructions, communicated halftime instructions to squad members for all halftime shows • Collaborated with committee on formal logistics and preparation, ran formal event Penn State Schreyer for Women Member • Connected with scholars in the college to promote strong women within the college Penn State Planned Parenthood Generation Action Member • Represented Penn State at national convention, trained to organize Penn State community, run data-driven campaigns and campaign for on-campus reproductive health accessibility Penn State Triota Women’s Studies Honor Society Member • Collaborated on gender and sexuality initiatives at Penn State • Trained to recognize domestic abuse and aid victims

Professional Experience Pennsylvania Department of Human Services May-August 2018, May-August 2019 Intern for the Office of Legislative Affairs • Attended bill hearings, analyzed legislation and marked up bills for amendments, organized bill tracking sheets • Attended program office meetings, resolved constituent inquiries, drafted bill hearing schedules, wrote weekly reports circulated to entire department

Ceisler Media and Issue Advocacy January 2019 Media Relations Intern • Assisted with media and public relations work for various organizations including Immigration Hub, Hunger-Free Pennsylvania, and hospitals in the Philadelphia region • Wrote blog posts for state-wide organizations, compiled media clips on a weekly basis, filmed footage for a digital press release, met with leadership of a major nationwide client, profiled members of boards of directors, maintained social media pages, composed tweets for statewide clients