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the split looks to be along the east/west germany border. how did east germany end up so reactionary though?
Brutalized by the west during reunification and persistently underdeveloped since
any kind of leftism being basically outlawed, communist leaders of
being thrown in prisons for reasons such as: checks notes deploying tear gas against protesters, and the whole country basically being treated like a colony for the west ever since35 years of far-right organizing and widespread hate crimes that conservatives did fuck all against, along with capitalist shock therapy followed by mass depopulation of rural areas and in some places outright nazi settlement policy with fascists from western states moving in and buying up cheap properties.
In addition to what others are saying… I don’t recall the number but somewhere between like 1.5 and 3 million residents of the former GDR moved west after reunification (and that’s on a fairly smallish population base). That’s because the west completed nuked the east’s economy and industrial base, honestly not that far off from what Russia experienced in the 90s (common for West German companies to buy a factory in the east for pennies and then close it down to avoid competition). But the difference is Russians had nowhere to go but East Germans could head to the west.
So in those conditions - not unlike what you see in the Rust Belt or small towns in the US - the only people who remain are those who can’t or don’t have the employable skills. And they’re left to languish in economic misery. Stew in that for a few decades and you’ll probably be pretty receptive to anyone who comes by to say your problems are all due to some “other”.
The counter-revolution of 1989/1990, market reforms and associated recession and unemployment, Nazi gangs forming out of poor youths attacking leftists ("baseball bat years"), the Party for Democratic Socialism (SED successor, later known as the Left Party after merging with a left-SPD splinter group) getting into coalition governments with social democrats and supporting neoliberal policies leading to a loss of credibility, pro-Russian foreign policy sympathies that only the AfD openly supports, nationalism being seen as the answer to social problems and, of course, racism.
Here is a great video that explains that. Sorry I don't have the exact timestamp at the moment.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: