The Jews of East Germany at a time of rising right-wing extremism

Following the disturbing election results in eastern Germany, which saw the triumph of authoritarian, xenophobic, and antisemitic parties, Antonia Sternberger examines the roots of far-right ideas in the former GDR and their influence on Jewish life. Her investigation highlights a particular inability to learn from historical experience—whether Nazi crimes or Soviet dictatorship—which forces Jews in eastern Germany to navigate, with a remarkable amount of courage, an environment that oscillates between ignorance and outright hostility.

 

It is Sunday, 1 September 2024, shortly after 6pm when it becomes evident that the clear winners of the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia will not come from the democratic spectrum. Instead, the far-right AfD and the Russia-friendly BSW gain over 40% of the vote and plunge both federal states into coalition chaos.^[1]

A few weeks later, Brandenburg followed suit^[2], proving once again that hostility to democracy and the desire for autocratic systems have become the norm in eastern German states. This trend was confirmed in February 2025, during the federal elections, when the AfD won 32% of the vote in eastern Germany, ahead of the conservatives by 13.2%.^[3]

The German press, academics, and policy-makers have poured considerable energy into diagnosing this drift. Essays and books have been written, reports filmed and satirical attempts made to approach the so-called ‘new federal states’ and their political orientation. To find out why their inhabitants are so keen to embrace the populist, xenophobic ‘solutions’ of the AfD that stirs up hatred against Muslim migrants, why so many people have a shocking fascination with Vladimir Putin and see the brutal war of aggression in Ukraine as justified – after all, NATO provoked Russia. 

However, in written, spoken, whispered and shouted words, a subject area and a minority that is suffering from the rise of both the extreme right and the extreme left has not been addressed. One could also say ignored, if at least not considered: East German Jews. 

Not only in the analyses of the elections, but even before them, Jews are virtually absent from East German perceptions. Too often, the only association is with the Buchenwald Memorial, whose director is threatened by right-wing extremists and which is frequently abused by diehards, and whose importance is then emphasised and highlighted by the established parties.^[4] From time to time it is also used to persuade sinning antisemites to change their minds, in the naïve hope that a confrontation with the deeds of the National Socialists would bring them to repentance. Stumbling stones are cleaned on 9 November and grand speeches are made on 27 January to mark the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. There can therefore be no question of a realistic representation of East German Jewish life, for this is not a matter of the past, but very much a part of the present. 

 

According to a statistic from 2023, there are around 125.000 Jews living in Germany.^[5] Germany’s Jewish population has one common denominator – their origin. At least 90 percent have a Soviet background having immigrated to Germany after the fall of the Soviet Union.^[6] Jewish life and traditions in general are very absent in the cities of Germany when you don’t know where to find it. Unlike in other European capitals, Jewish quarters are virtually non-existent here.^[7]

Young Jewish life in the eastern German states in particular remains negligible for most of the German society. They are only concerned with dead Jews, if at all – not with the living and certainly not with Jewish youth. After the shocking election results, the media are once again starting to look for the causes of the undemocratic voting behaviour of many.^[8]

For East German Jews the election results represent another danger that now needs to be taken into account. Since October 7 and the violent massacres and attacks by Hamas, the security situation for Jews throughout Germany has massively deteriorated. The already necessary police presence in front of synagogues has been increased, Jewish events are taking place either behind closed doors or under police protection, antisemitic and anti-Zionist graffiti adorn streets and university buildings, Jewish students are being attacked and pro-Palestine demonstrations are escalating on a weekly basis. 

While attempts were made (less successfully) to de-Nazify society in the federal states ‘occupied’ by the Western Allies and an awareness of the crimes of the National Socialists slowly developed, at least through the work of Fritz Bauer and the Auschwitz trials in the 1960s, these were not dealt with in the GDR.

The election results in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg and East Germany in general confirm that almost half of the voters vote for parties that hold antisemitic and anti-Israel beliefs. However, these antisemitic excesses do not come as a surprise – at least not to the inhabitants in question. Alexander Tsyterer, co-founder of the Jewish Alliance of Central Germany, reports that he experienced antisemitism during his school years. “A classmate put his hands on my shoulders and told me `Adolf Hitler be with you`.” This was just the beginning. Other antisemitic attacks and comments followed. He also mentions that he not only experienced horrendous anti-Jewish harassment but was also hated by his classmates for his Russian identity. When he finally fought back, Alexander blamed himself for his inaction. But this was also due to his fear of rendering himself even more unpopular and attracting further unwanted attention. Alexander’s experiences are unfortunately not uncommon in East German schools. In many cases, antisemitic comments are not taken seriously and are not repudiated. Instead of giving pupils consequences, many teachers look for excuses. Explanations with which they can explain pupils’ behaviour and avoid an urgently needed confrontation with deeply internalised social antisemitism. For them calling a WhatsApp group the ‘Auschwitz Express’ is solely a joke and these 15-year-olds simply do not know any better. Making fun of gassings while standing in front of a crematorium at a memorial site is unpleasant, but can also simply be attributed to the fact that the person in question was overwhelmed by the visit. The fact that other overtaxed pupils do not stand in front of crematoria and, after being confronted by a courageous fellow pupil, trumpet that they simply did not want to touch the fates of the gassed is then no longer explored at all. Educational institutions would then have to take a hard look at themselves and society would have to admit that antisemitism has never disappeared but has always been passed on from generation to generation. However, it is also the task of schools to counteract these excesses and sensitise young people. 

The open display of antisemitic stances in East Germany can also be found in the history of these federal states. While attempts were made (less successfully) to de-Nazify society in the federal states ‘occupied’ by the Western Allies and an awareness of the crimes of the National Socialists slowly developed, at least through the work of Fritz Bauer and the Auschwitz trials in the 1960s, these were not dealt with in the GDR. After all, supposedly there were meant to be no (former) fascists in the country that had to be protected by the ‘anti-fascist defence wall’.^[9]

However, such a premise inevitably led to antisemitic and misanthropic narratives being able to continue, unfold and be reproduced within families without being challenged. In addition, Jewish life in the GDR, as in the rest of the Soviet Union, could not flourish due to Soviet control. It was suppressed, making it difficult for Jews in East Germany to develop their own Jewish cultural and religious identity.^[10] As a result, Judaism as a religion, but also as an ethnic group, remained largely in the dark. 

After years of fascist National Socialist dictatorship, in which Jews were persecuted and murdered as ‘manifest evil’, a further four decades followed without any real ideology-free reappraisal and anti-Judaism. During this period of  60 years Jews were not seen as part of German society, but as foreign and different. In this context, experiences of antisemitism in schools and the current election results come as no surprise.

Many people in East Germany seem to have forgotten what characterises the West to which they belong: tolerance, respect for universal human rights, democracy and a free press.

The latter in particular are a result of the glorification of the GDR and the Soviet Union, which has been growing louder and more persistent for years. The SED^[11] dictatorship is not labelled as such. In interviews, articles, books, on social media and at demonstrations, people emphasise how easy life was in the GDR, how regulated the processes were and that, in short, socialism was far superior to capitalism as a system. The fact that the same people regularly boast that only they are sensitised to recognise the beginning of a new dictatorship due to their experiences and regularly mention that ‘everything is worse today than under the Stasi’ is blatant hypocrisy. 

It is precisely the endurance of this ambivalence that leads to the mélange of events that regularly occur in East German cities. If you are not confronted with so-called ‘peace demonstrations’ that blame NATO, the USA and Ukraine itself for the war that has been raging in Ukraine since 22 February 2022, you will encounter people who lament the ‘Corona dictatorship’ and compare themselves to Anne Frank and the resistance fighters of the White Rose.^[12] At the same time, people tell themselves that, unlike the ‘Wessis<footnote>“Wessis” is an informal, pejorative, and colloquial term used in Germany to refer to people who originated in the former West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany, or FRG) before the country’s reunification in 1990. The term is derived from the German word ‘Westen’ (meaning “west”).</footnote>who listen to the authorities’, they immediately recognise anti-democratic tendencies, but then demonstrate with so-called Reich citizens and Putin apologists for a dictatorship in which opposition voices are either sent to prison camps or mysteriously fall from a window to their deaths. 

From there, the path to antisemitism, racist attacks and the rejection of queerness is not far away. It does not take long to get there when those who describe the fall of the Berlin Wall as a transition from one dictatorship to another warn, believe that granting basic rights to minorities will mark the beginning of the next one.

In an article in the magazine “Der Spiegel” on 15 November 2024, the writer Lukas Rietzschel aptly describes the state of affairs in East Germany, saying: “East Germany is almost dying from its fetishised comparisons, assertion and wear-and-tear battles with and against the West, circling around itself to such an extent that it forgets that it is itself part of the West.”’^[13] Many people in East Germany seem to have forgotten what characterises the West to which they belong: tolerance, respect for universal human rights, democracy and a free press. 

Given this atmosphere in East Germany, which has persisted for several years, it is not surprising that the emphatic coldness and hatred of minorities is increasingly and openly directed against Jews. Even in the run-up to the elections, the federal chairwoman of the BSW^[14], Sahra Wagenknecht, stirred up sentiment against the Jewish state describing Israel’s actions as a ‘campaign of extermination’ and calling for an end to arms deliveries to Israel.^[15] In the context of the tense atmosphere in Germany as a whole since October 7, these initiatives contributed to further mistrust of Israel. Alexander told me that he wasn’t surprised by the successful state election results of the BSW. “It is obviously frightening, but it was to be expected. Interestingly, the BSW achieved these results with an election campaign that was not concerned with regional federal issues but with extra-political issues such as the war in Ukraine.” 

Even after the elections, Wagenknecht called for an end to German solidarity with Israel’s government and implied complicity in possible war crimes.^[16] The BSW thus joins a tradition with Wagenknecht’s favourite party, the SED. The latter declared the only Jewish state in the world to be an ‘international lawbreaker’ and ‘aggressor state’.^[17] As can be seen from an article by Wolfgang Benz in the Federal Centre for Political Enlightenment, anti-Zionism was part of the GDR’s state doctrine.^[18] The state of Israel became a pawn in the Cold War, in which the GDR’s anti-Israeli stance was dictated by the Soviet Union. Given this overall view, it is not surprising that 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, antisemitic and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories fall on fertile ground in eastern Germany.

Jews are aware that almost half of their fellow citizens harbor antisemitic resentments, or at least do not attach enough importance to them to have an impact on their voting decisions.

In addition to a pronounced hostility towards Israel, Jewish communities are also exposed to right-wing extremist attacks and assaults. After peaking in the 1990s, attacks by neo-Nazis on minorities have been on the rise again for several years. In 2023 alone, the number of right-wing extremist offences in Germany rose by 22.4 per cent to 25,660 compared to the previous year.^[19]

Since the rise of the AfD, inhibitions that previously still existed, at least in part, appear to have been steadily eroded. At AfD electoral events, its top candidate in Thuringia and co-founder of the party’s internal far-right ‘wing’ used a SA slogan, for which he was sentenced to pay a fine.^[20] At other election events, he encouraged those present to shout the slogan. He also shouted slogans glorifying National Socialism and antisemitic slogans together with neo-Nazis in various smaller Saxon towns, including Grimma.^[21] When journalists speak to AfD voters about the party’s antisemitism, glorification of the Third Reich and trivialisation of the Holocaust, they have to put up with answers that support all of these positions. 

Instead of condemning the shameless misrepresentation of history by the AfD and their worship of the NSDAP, at least in front of a camera, the interviewees smile proudly into the cameras and profess this world view. This proves once again that the far-right AfD is not, as some claim, voted for by so-called protest voters, but that the majority of its supporters hold a firmly far-right, antisemitic, islamophobic and xenophobic world view. The AfD is trying to clothe itself in a democratic guise and is using this pretence to lure out all those in eastern Germany who have always held these views but were afraid to express them in public. This shame no longer exists. You no longer have to hide being a right-wing extremist in East Germany. 

The impact on Jewish life is as obvious as it is serious. In October 2024 alone, stumbling stones were torn out of pavements and stolen in Zeitz and Halle, antisemitic articles were shared by Höcke on social media, swastikas and National Socialist slogans were daubed on the walls of houses in the Brandenburg town of Spremberg, a German flag was replaced with a swastika flag at a viewpoint, memorial plaques were graffitied, Hitler salutes were shown in Stollberg and Grimma, and stumbling stones in Weimar were covered in plaster.^[22]

These events only represent a small selection of antisemitic incidents in one month, the number of unreported cases is much higher. The knowledge of the election results alone leads to a different experience and life in eastern German states. Jews are aware that almost half of their fellow citizens harbor antisemitic resentments, or at least do not attach enough importance to them to have an impact on their voting decisions.

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Nevertheless, Jewish life in East Germany does not come to a standstill. On the contrary: although the proportion of Jewish East Germans is only between 0.003 and 0.008 per cent, and the majority came to Germany as so-called contingent refugees after the collapse of the Soviet Union, East German Jewry is trying out something very Jewish: resilience.

Alexander reports that although young Jews in particular are turning their backs on East Germany due to experiences of antisemitism, those who stay behind are becoming increasingly organised. This is why the JAM (Jewish Alliance of Central Germany) and Hillel have set themselves the task of building up a young Jewish community. In addition, because there are so few Jews in these federal states, they welcome not only matrilineal but also patrilineal Jews. According to Alexander, “we have to stick together precisely because there are so few of them”. 

Due to their small numbers, things are always very informal. They celebrate Shabbat together and the work of both organisations is slowly bearing fruit, which fills Alexander with pride and joy. At last there seems to be something like a young Jewish life in East Germany that proudly lives out its religion and stands by its Jewishness, especially in the face of adversity. They don’t want to be intimidated by antisemitism from any side, but want to be strong, proud and Jewish. To further showcase the existence but also the struggles  that young Jews in Eastern Germany put up with, Alexander is a contributor for the EDA magazine, a magazine founded by the Federal Jewish Student Union. His articles range from reports about the inadequate culture of remembrance to poems about resilience to interviews with Jewish restaurant owners. “The EDA magazine is an amazing outlet for me to write about politics, about the antisemitism we face especially since October 7th but also to signal to the world that I am Jewish, I am living here and grew up in East Germany and I am proud of it.”

By focusing its efforts on remembrance, Germany is primarily concerned with itself, with accepting its own guilt and responsibility for the Shoah. After all, Jews in Germany do not need to be made aware of the crimes of the Shoah.

Looking to the future, there is great uncertainty. The Coalition negotiations underway in the eastern German states were proving difficult due to the strong results of the AfD and BSW. After all, both parties are aiming to destroy the free democratic basic order as Germany knows it. Both represent antisemitic positions and leave no chance to avoid incitement against Muslims, Jews, migrants and their descendants, and Israel. In Saxony, the CDU is in a coalition with the SPD – forming a minority government.^[23] In Thuringia, the CDU and SPD were forced to form a coalition with the BSW whereas the SPD and the BSW are going to govern the State of Brandenburg. These new governments are a sign that democracy is in danger when it comes to East German States. The minority government in Saxony is dependent on other parties to get bills through parliament – which proves to be difficult when at least two of the remaining parliamentary fractions try to discredit and to destroy democracy as we know it. 

Although, Germany escaped such a situation on the federal level with a government between CDU and SPD led by the new Chancellor Friedrich Merz^[24], the danger is far from over. The so-called Alternative for Germany managed to achieve the second strongest result in the Bundestag elections, receiving 20,8 % of the vote.^[25] Encouraged by the population in their xenophobic and backward statements, they will continue to radicalize themselves and try to prevent a smooth parliamentary work worthy of a democracy in order to weaken it from within.

It is precisely the AfD’s aim to make Germany as ‘weak’ as possible to capitalize on people’s fears and concerns and bind them to them with the help of simple populist solutions. They stir up hatred and follow their National Socialist role model, who also recognised that ‘hatred is a powerful emotion’.^[26] The AfD and smaller far-right parties such as ‘Die Heimat’, ‘III. Weg’ and ‘Freie Sachsen’ will use the next four years until the next general election in February 2025 to further mobilise and radicalize their supporters and to fight back against the ‘elite that rules the world’ and get rid of them. Their public appearances are going to be riddled with infamy, lies, xenophobia and antisemitic conspiracy theories – that much is certain. It is to be hoped that the broad majority of Germans will prove to be resistant against this and support parties and initiatives on the democratic spectrum – also in order to protect Jewish life and learn lessons from their own history instead of repeating it. 

 

Aside from weak election results of antisemitic parties, Alexander would like to see something else in the future: a rethink of German responsibility. It is, of course, the task of the German state to sponsor concentration camp memorials, ensure the security of Jewish communities and support the laying of stumbling stones. However, Germany is doing this more for itself, in order to come to terms with its own guilt and responsibility for the Shoah. After all, Jews in Germany do not need to be made aware of the crimes of the Shoah. Their families experienced it and only partially survived. 

Alexander, on the other hand, would like to see the true promotion of Jewish life in East and West Germany. Kosher food should be made more accessible, Jewish kindergartens and schools should be established, or at least Jewish religious education should be widely and made accessible. His suggestions concern everyday things that are part of German-Jewish life and exist outside of the culture of remembrance. This is how Jewish life in East Germany should develop in the future: It should become part of everyday life, not only for those who live it, but for all fellow citizens – so that East German Jewry is no longer perceived as a foreign body, but can finally take its rightful place. For East German Jews, Alexander hopes for courage and confidence. “After every storm there is a rainbow. I hope for an even closer bond with young Jews from all around Germany so that we can continue to grow our diverse, fun and proud community.” 

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Antonia Sternberger