How the AfD Rose and Why It Leads in the East

In barely a dozen years the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has moved from a single‑issue euro‑sceptic start‑up to the second‑strongest force in the Bundestag, winning 20.8 percent of the popular vote at snap federal elections on 23 February 2025 and overtaking the once‑dominant Social Democrats. Even more striking is its regional asymmetry. In the eastern Länder-Saxony, Thuringia, Brandenburg, Saxony‑Anhalt and Mecklenburg‑Vorpommern, the party now polls above 30 percent and won an outright plurality in the 2024 regional contests in Saxony (30.6 percent) and Thuringia (32.8 percent). Understanding why a party judged by three‑quarters of Germans to be “on the fringes of right‑wing extremism” could entrench itself so firmly in the east requires a look at three concentric layers: the long shadow of reunification, the socio‑economic aftershocks of globalisation and decarbonisation, and a series of political market failures that the AfD exploited with unusual agility.

When the German Democratic Republic (GDR) collapsed in 1990, policymakers opted for rapid currency union and mass privatisation. The Treuhandanstalt liquidated or sold 85 percent of eastern enterprises within four years, eliminating an estimated 2.4 million jobs. Unemployment in some districts climbed above 20 percent and remained in double digits long after the national rate fell. Eastern GDP per head recovered only slowly; by 2024 it still trailed the west by roughly one quarter (€41 858 versus €53 052). The abrupt rupture from socialist full employment to market competition bred a sense of betrayal that later morphed into the AfD’s campaign slogan “Vollende die Wende” (“Finish the revolution”).

Hartz IV and safety‑net erosion.

The Social‑Democrat‑led Hartz reforms (2003‑05) tightened benefit eligibility and pushed the long‑term unemployed into a newly created low‑wage sector. While the measures cut joblessness nationally, they also deepened income insecurity in regions still digesting de‑industrialisation. Eastern voters, once loyal to the SPD or the post‑communist Left (Die Linke), felt doubly abandoned, first by reunification economics, then by a centre‑left viewed as embracing “neoliberal” orthodoxy.

Do you see the AfD as a normal democratic party or more on the right-wing extremist fringe?

Three decades after unification, 62 percent of easterners say their GDR experiences are “misrepresented” in national media, and 54 percent see western elites as culturally dominant, a perception the AfD amplifies by denouncing “re‑education” and “woke diktats”. Thuringia’s party boss Björn Höcke consciously links present grievances to an unfinished unification, styling the AfD as the heir to 1989’s Monday demonstrations. This narrative resonates in ageing towns whose populations shrank by up to 15 percent through westward migration, fuelling fears of demographic and cultural disappearance.

Persistent wage and employment gaps.

Average gross monthly earnings in the new Länder were €3 769 in 2023, against €4 586 in the old federal territory, roughly a 17 percent gap. Registered unemployment in eastern Germany stood at 7.9 percent in March 2025 versus 4–5 percent in the west . Such disparities nurture a “second‑class citizen” mindset that the AfD converts into votes by promising tariff protection, energy bill relief and pension boosts for “those who built the country”.

Industrial transition pains.

Eastern manufacturing remains concentrated in energy‑intensive and legacy sectors, lignite mining in Lusatia, chemicals in Saxony‑Anhalt, facing closure under EU climate targets. When 2023’s energy‑price spike hit regional SMEs, AfD politicians toured factory gates accusing Berlin of sacrificing jobs for “eco‑ideology”. Surveys during the 2024 state campaigns showed that cost‑of‑living and plant closures overtook migration as chief voter worries, a thematic pivot the party exploited adroitly.

4 | Generational grievances and youth mobilisation

Contrary to the stereotype of an ageing protest vote, the AfD has become the first choice of many young easterners: 38 percent of voters under 25 in Thuringia backed the party in 2024, double the share among pensioners. While official youth unemployment is below 10 percent, entry‑level wages lag western peers and rental markets in university cities such as Leipzig or Dresden have tightened sharply. The AfD’s student cells run campaigns like “Freiheit statt Ideologie” (“Freedom over ideology”) that attack gender‑neutral language, climate activism and EU digital‑ID plans as elitist projects diverting funds from practical vocational training.

5 | Migration crises and the security nexus

2015 as founding trauma.Angela Merkel’s decision to admit 890 000 asylum seekers in 2015 catapulted the AfD from 4 to 10 percent nationally. Paradoxically, the eastern states, where foreign‑born residents are below 7 percent compared with more than 16 percent in the west, reacted most strongly. In Dresden, the Pegida movement drew weekly crowds of 25 000, providing a ready‑made street‑network that AfD organisers later absorbed.

Crime perceptions versus statistics.The AfD links the renewed asylum surge of 2022‑24 to violent incidents and loss of public space, although recent research by Munich’s Ifo Institute finds “no correlation between a district’s share of foreigners and its crime rate” . The gap between perception and data allows the party to champion radical security proposals, border troops, priority housing for natives, that reinforce its protector role.

6 | Political market failures and strategic evolution

Mainstream erosion.In 1998 the SPD captured 35 percent of eastern votes; by 2024 its share had fallen below 10. The Christian Democrats (CDU) haemorrhaged culturally conservative supporters after embracing Merkel’s centrist course and her 2015 migration stance. Die Linke, long the voice of eastern protest, declined as its ageing base shrank. The AfD filled the vacuum by combining nationalist identity politics with welfare chauvinism.

From single‑issue to catch‑all.Under Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla (a Saxon master craftsman), the AfD broadened its platform:

• Economic populism: 25 percent tariffs on Chinese electric cars to protect Saxon assembly lines.

• Social protectionism: Higher pensions financed by means‑testing migrant benefits.

• Techno‑skepticism: Opposition to “15‑minute cities” and EU digital‑ID schemes.

This issue bundling helped the party capture 38 percent of eastern working‑class votes in 2025 according to INSA post‑election polls

7 | Eastern Germany as organisational laboratory

Dense cadre networks.Decades of far‑right subculture, National Democratic Party chapters, neo‑Nazi rock festivals, martial‑arts clubs, provided logistic know‑how that AfD activists repurposed. By 2024, 60 percent of AfD district chairs in Thuringia had prior experience in such organisations. Unlike the understaffed CDU or SPD, the AfD maintains offices in more than 90 percent of rural eastern Kreise, enabling relentless door‑to‑door mobilisation.

Alternative media ecosystems.Outlets such as Sachsen‑Magazin and a constellation of Telegram channels with 1.2 million eastern followers portray mainstream news as Lügenpresse (“lying press”), a Weimar‑era slur revived by Pegida. Memes blending regional pride with anti‑elite anger, “Wir sind wieder wer” (“We count again”), create a shared identity that strengthens voter loyalty even when national scandals erupt.

8 | Climate‑policy backlash

The 2023 Building Heating Act (Heizungsgesetz), dubbed the “heating hammer”, mandated a rapid switch from oil & gas boilers to heat pumps and became a lightning rod in eastern towns with older housing stock. AfD politicians travelled with mock heat‑pump props to frame the law as a “Green war on ordinary Germans”, echoing coverage in conservative tabloid Bild and fuelling petitions that ultimately watered down the legislation. Subsequent research on climate obstructionism shows the party has woven environmental resentment into its master narrative of cultural decline.

9 | Consequences and future trajectories

Normalisation and alliance dilemmas.With 20.8 percent of the national vote and outright pluralities in several eastern states, the AfD has become Germany’s first far‑right party since 1945 with realistic coalition arithmetic. Yet all other Bundestag factions still uphold a cordon sanitaire. Whether that firewall holds will depend on regional dynamics: if the AfD leads governments in Saxony or Thuringia after the 2025 autumn state elections, pressure for “toleration agreements” may grow, mirroring models seen in Sweden and Italy.

Civil‑society pushback.Anti‑AfD protests under the banner “Bunt statt Braun” (“Colourful not brown”) drew more than 100 000 people to Leipzig in February 2025, echoing earlier demonstrations that nonetheless failed to dent the party’s vote share. A case pending before the Federal Constitutional Court seeks to classify the Thuringian branch as extremist; a ban could remove Höcke from politics but risk martyring his movement.

The AfD’s eastern fortress rests on a triple foundation: unresolved economic disparities from reunification, the subjective experience of cultural marginalisation and a series of policy shocks, migration, pandemic lockdowns, energy‑price spikes, climate mandates, that mainstream parties failed to translate into credible, locally resonant solutions. By bundling nationalist identity with selective social protection and techno‑populist scepticism, the AfD converted protest into conviction; 52 percent of its 2025 voters now cite “policy agreement”, not “teach others a lesson”, as their main motive. Reversing that trend will demand more than moral denunciation. It will require targeted investment to close the east‑west prosperity gap, participatory forums that restore political trust, and climate transitions designed with, not for, the regions most at risk. Until then, the AfD’s slogan of “completing reunification” will continue to resonate in the places where reunification still feels incomplete.