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Ostalgie anyone?
Of course not. It obviously doesn't follow from what I wrote.
It's true that Kohl/Schröder/Merkel were all massive crooks even by the standards of German politicians, but do you really think East Germany would have done better as separate nation? AfD support in the East is at about the same level as NSDAP support nationwide in 1933🙂
The high level of 'support' for the "AfD" in the East is a combination of several factors, not the least of which are the disastrous policies imposed on the East through the rushed 'reunification'. Their economy was sold out from under them without people being given any meaningful say, and it led to decades of deprivation. People are still immensely, and rightfully, aggrieved about what happened, and Putin-financed and -directed propaganda obviously exploits these vulnerabilities. Perfectly viable different timescales for reunification were put forward at the time, but Kohl wanted to rush it because had there been another election in West Germany only, he would probably have been voted out of office. He only won in 1990 because enough people in the East believed his lies about "blühende Landschaften" ('flowering lands'). That's not to blame those who were obviously desperate to see the back of the GDR dictatorship, but they didn't realise what a dishonest corruptocracy they ended up trusting.
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Oliver Schick
Ostalgie anyone? It's true that Kohl/Schröder/Merkel were all massive crooks even by the standards of German politicians, but do you really think East Germany would have done better as separate nation? AfD support in the East is at about the same level as NSDAP support nationwide in 1933🙂