East Germany Is Still a Country of Its Own

Election posters of Dietmar Woidke of the Social Democratic Party, Steffen Kubitzki of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, and the Greens party are pictured during state elections in Brandenburg, Germany, on Sept. 1, 2019. ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images

DESSAU-ROSSLAU, Germany—Earlier this summer, on the eve of regional elections in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, German politician Marco Wanderwitz was asked about the region’s strong support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Wanderwitz, the German government’s special commissioner for eastern Germany, attributed the AfD’s successes in the east to the region’s authoritarian past and said he believes only a small fraction of those voters are “potentially recoverable” for mainstream parties like his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).