German Politics Thread

[jcb]

and I've never been a Christian (celebrating Christmas and Easter notwithstanding).

I can imagine Christmas, but how does your secular observance of Easter look like? I mean, you're clearly too old to hunt for eggs, and judging from some of your past posts, I've got the impression that the one child of yours about whom you occasionally talk is, by now, too old to hunt for eggs, too. And I'm not sure if I can think of any ways of celebrating Easter other than 1) attending religious service, and 2) hunting for eggs.

(1) Although Easter is a much less popular holiday than Christmas in America, stores and brands sometimes have/promote Easter-themed products, centering particularly around rabbits and eggs. Easter-themed M&M's come to mind (note the rabbit ears):
- https://i5.walmartimages.com/seo/M-M-s- ... 935be.jpeg
(2) There is also painting the (real) eggs before one hides and finds them.

[jcb]

Responding to something Germany-related that jcb posted in the US Politics Thread:

Looking at a map of Germany during the last election ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Germ ... ection.svg ), there's a correlation between what used to be East Germany and voting for the AfD now. Was/Is East Germany more racist than West Germany? Can racism alone explain the difference?

Yes and yes. Neonazis were already a very big thing in the East back in the 1990s. Partly it's because during partition, there was very little migration to the East, so there was more of a shock when migrants eventually did arrive; and partly, IMO, it's because the East simply mostly didn't have the cultural and social changes that happened in the West between 1950 and 1990.

(1) Did West Germany do a better job of suppressing their nazis than East Germany?
(2) So why is the Reform party likewise becoming more popular in the UK, and the National Rally/Front in France? After all, those countries were never split between slave-owning and not slave-owning, nor between communism and capitalism.

[Raphael]

(1) Did West Germany do a better job of suppressing their nazis than East Germany?

No, but it became more open to the outside world than the East during the time of partition, and got more used to the presence of migrants. It was an extremely gradual process, but it had decades to work.

(Not that I'd want to be smug about a supposed lack of racism in the West, mind you. It's just that racism in the West has, for a long time, usually taken different forms than political support for the extreme Right.)

(2) So why is the Reform party likewise becoming more popular in the UK, and the National Rally/Front in France? After all, those countries were never split between slave-owning and not slave-owning, nor between communism and capitalism.

I guess in those countries, your and Frank's explanation really works best. Though there's also the "The last time when fascism was a big thing in Europe is disappearing from living memory"-thing.

[jcb]

I guess in those countries, your and Frank's explanation really works best. Though there's also the "The last time when fascism was a big thing in Europe is disappearing from living memory"-thing.

IMO, even the slave-owning/racism explanation falls short in America! After all, many of the states that voted for Trump were Northern states in the midwestern or western USA, places where most of the people are not descended from those who fought for the confederacy, but from those who fought *against* it! (But I'm not denying that racism exists in the North, of course.)

[Travis B.]

I guess in those countries, your and Frank's explanation really works best. Though there's also the "The last time when fascism was a big thing in Europe is disappearing from living memory"-thing.

IMO, even the slave-owning/racism explanation falls short in America! After all, many of the states that voted for Trump were Northern states in the midwestern or western USA, places where most of the people are not descended from those who fought for the confederacy, but from those who fought *against* it! (But I'm not denying that racism exists in the North, of course.)

It should be remembered that a large portion of the population of the North is descended from people who didn't even live in the US at the time of the Civil War; e.g. my whole mother's side is descended from Poles who arrived in the early 20th century.

[Raphael]

IMO, even the slave-owning/racism explanation falls short in America! After all, many of the states that voted for Trump were Northern states in the midwestern or western USA, places where most of the people are not descended from those who fought for the confederacy, but from those who fought *against* it! (But I'm not denying that racism exists in the North, of course.)

I'd say the part you say in parentheses pretty much demolishes everything you say before the parentheses.

[Travis B.]

Racism* definitely exists in the North, it just takes different forms from racism in the South. Racism in the South is due to slavery in the past, of course, while racism in the North is due in a large part to the Great Migration. In northern cities Black people are often seen as a semi-foreign element which has brought crime and urban decay to them. Conversely, many racist northern Whites don't care if Black people are 'uppity' and indeed may be less prejudiced against 'uppity' Black people than poor Black people. (E.g. a racist northern White may have completely willingly voted for Obama yet still be prejudiced against Blacks in the inner city.)

* specifically towards Black people by White people

[Raphael]

Racism* definitely exists in the North, it just takes different forms from racism in the South. Racism in the South is due to slavery in the past, of course, while racism in the North is due in a large part to the Great Migration. In northern cities Black people are often seen as a semi-foreign element which has brought crime and urban decay to them. Conversely, many racist northern Whites don't care if Black people are 'uppity' and indeed may be less prejudiced against 'uppity' Black people than poor Black people. (E.g. a racist northern White may have completely willingly voted for Obama yet still be prejudiced against Blacks in the inner city.)

* specifically towards Black people by White people

I once read somewhere that there was supposedly a saying among Black people in the US that "In the South, they don't care how close you get as long as you don't get too high. In the North, they don't care how high you get as long as you don't get too close." But this is getting off topic for this thread.

[Travis B.]

Racism* definitely exists in the North, it just takes different forms from racism in the South. Racism in the South is due to slavery in the past, of course, while racism in the North is due in a large part to the Great Migration. In northern cities Black people are often seen as a semi-foreign element which has brought crime and urban decay to them. Conversely, many racist northern Whites don't care if Black people are 'uppity' and indeed may be less prejudiced against 'uppity' Black people than poor Black people. (E.g. a racist northern White may have completely willingly voted for Obama yet still be prejudiced against Blacks in the inner city.)

* specifically towards Black people by White people

I once read somewhere that there was supposedly a saying among Black people in the US that "In the South, they don't care how close you get as long as you don't get too high. In the North, they don't care how high you get as long as you don't get too close." But this is getting off topic for this thread.

I am replying here.

[Ares Land]

No, but it became more open to the outside world than the East during the time of partition, and got more used to the presence of migrants. It was an extremely gradual process, but it had decades to work.

My impression may be wrong, but I feel there was quite a bit of reflexion and soul-searching in West Germany around Nazism, plus some very proactive measures to prevent neo-Nazism.
There was none of that in East Germany, so it's not surprising there aren't the same kind of taboos around the far right.

[Travis B.]

No, but it became more open to the outside world than the East during the time of partition, and got more used to the presence of migrants. It was an extremely gradual process, but it had decades to work.

My impression may be wrong, but I feel there was quite a bit of reflexion and soul-searching in West Germany around Nazism, plus some very proactive measures to prevent neo-Nazism.
There was none of that in East Germany, so it's not surprising there aren't the same kind of taboos around the far right.

Mind you, in West Germany there still was the likes of the Historikerstreit, where prominent conservative historians essentially tried to apologize for the Holocaust.

[Ares Land]

Mind you, in West Germany there still was the likes of the Historikerstreit, where prominent conservative historians essentially tried to apologize for the Holocaust.

Certainly; I don't claim West Germany was perfect.
But one thing it did well was keep the far right unacceptable as a politcal option; and it was, I think, better at it than many other European countries.

[Travis B.]

Mind you, in West Germany there still was the likes of the Historikerstreit, where prominent conservative historians essentially tried to apologize for the Holocaust.

Certainly; I don't claim West Germany was perfect.
But one thing it did well was keep the far right unacceptable as a politcal option; and it was, I think, better at it than many other European countries.

West Germany may have kept the far right unacceptable in polite company as a political option, yes, but the former Nazis, former Flakhelfer, former Hitler Youth, and like did not simply go away (until they eventually died of old age), even if most of them kept their heads down and their views to themselves.

[Raphael]

Mind you, in West Germany there still was the likes of the Historikerstreit, where prominent conservative historians essentially tried to apologize for the Holocaust.

I think you mean "come up with apologetics for"

[Travis B.]

Mind you, in West Germany there still was the likes of the Historikerstreit, where prominent conservative historians essentially tried to apologize for the Holocaust.

I think you mean "come up with apologetics for"

Which is a meaning of 'apologize' in English, if a somewhat formal, literary meaning.

[rotting bones]

Background: When I was in school, many people warned me not to go to America. They said America's power will inevitably fall as the countries that make their cheap goods in sweat shops become more developed. I thought this doesn't affect me because I like free speech and science. I'm not doing it for the money. Unfortunately, the far right is rising everywhere because, according to Terror Management Theory, the thought of losing power sends people into a panic where they romanticize the past through the lens of nostalgia. This applies to Europe as well as America.

Looking at a map of Germany during the last election ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Germ ... ection.svg ), there's a correlation between what used to be East Germany and voting for the AfD now. Was/Is East Germany more racist than West Germany? Can racism alone explain the difference?

I think Nazism is bigger in East Germany because it's a less wealthy place. East Germans were exploited by West Germans after the national unification. All the German states are relatively wealthy, but Terror Management Theory applies to people who feel like they are losing relative to others, not in absolute terms. See a map of German states by wealth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_G ... per_capita

The economist Mariana Mazzucato says America pretends to be libertarian, but it has always had an industrial policy until recently. Europe pretends to have an industrial policy, but has never had one. This might explain the differing elements of far right rhetoric in various countries.

[Ares Land]

I think Nazism is bigger in East Germany because it's a less wealthy place. East Germans were exploited by West Germans after the national unification.

Yes, relative poverty in the East is a factor, though not the only one, I think. Other factors include the ones I mentioned earlier.

The economist Mariana Mazzucato says America pretends to be libertarian, but it has always had an industrial policy until recently. Europe pretends to have an industrial policy, but has never had one. This might explain the differing elements of far right rhetoric in various countries.

For Europe, the picture is more complicated. At least some European countries certainly had an industrial policy, plus quite a bit of cooperation on the (West-)European level. Economic policies tended to de-emphasize industry in favor of services from the 80s to the 2020s, though a lot depends on the country. The industrial sector is stronger in Germany, for instance.
In the US, I don't know, but my impression is that American industry was hit really harder in the 80s.

[Raphael]

It used to be that the party that was really a lot bigger in the East than in the West was the Left, the successor of the old East German state party, or, as it had previously been called, the PDS. I guess you could make a case that the AfD gradually replaced the Left as the main party of the East when the men who had been young Nazi skinheads back in the 1990s had become middle-aged.

[Creyeditor]

Having lived in these parts of Germany for some years, I want to add to of my personal ideas on this:

• First, many people here have lived or have been raised by people who in a system that was not democratic. This fostered a certain distrust for the government even after the Wende. The AfD is profiting immensly from this distrust.
• The Left were socially conservative in many places in the East. They basically promised for society (not the political system) to stay as it was in the 80s. This gained them many votes. In my perception this has changed in the last 5 to 10 years. The AfD profits (paradoxically) from rhis change.

[rotting bones]

Personally, I'm skeptical about cultural continuity except when institutions actively promote it.

Voters in the American South also distrust government. In fact, voters in the entire Global South tend to do that. Almost all of these societies value conservatism even when they did not historically.