- cross-posted to:
- map_enthusiasts@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- map_enthusiasts@sopuli.xyz
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I’m shocked AFD is eastern
I’m not. Populism thrives when people are dissatisfied and angry. East Germany is economically not as strong as the west, despite decades of reunion.
As a mexican… U right and u right
Soviet brain damage lingers on.
Taking the ex-communist countries as a whole, my impression is that forced social progress gets in the way of real social progress. Add a shitty economy on top of that, and you have fertile ground for fascists.
Sad to see 1/3 of german voted for nazi in both local and federal vote.
It’s funny to see Berlin, a Linke haven, lost in a huge sea of nazis.
Leipzig similarly
“Extremes” both sides, ie. the Nazis and the Left party, are more popular in the east, no doubt because it is poorer, so people are less satisfied with the status quo.
If you’re wondering what the AfD districts in the West were: Gelsenkirchen in the north and Kaiserslautern in the south.
The most notable thing in Kaiserslautern is Ramstein air base and friends. I guess the military votes far-right.
I have no idea what’s up with Gelsenkirchen. SPD came second with CDU just behind, so maybe it’s what would be vote splitting in a dumber electoral system. As it is, the map is just a map.
You can find an interactive version here.
Gelsenkirchen is a traditional working class area, which used to be secure SPD heartland. SPD has lost voters massively to AfD among workers over the years, including among the immigrant working class.
Soldiers in Germany tend to vote CDU. The last couple of years the head of the Bundestag’s defense commission Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann from the FDP was super popular. In the past SPD was also really strong. These two polls on the Bundeswehr subreddit have FDP and CDU together with a supermajority. Now that’s of course not representative, but gives you an idea that the military doesn’t vote far right.
including among the immigrant working class.
Really?? That doesn’t seem possible, since people tend not to vote for candidates that openly hate them. Do you have a source?
Soldiers in Germany tend to vote CDU. The last couple of years the head of the Bundestag’s defense commission Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann from the FDP was super popular. In the past SPD was also really strong. These two polls on the Bundeswehr subreddit have FDP and CDU together with a supermajority.
That makes sense. CDU is (by German standards) strong on defence, even I know that.
Now that’s of course not representative, but gives you an idea that the military doesn’t vote far right.
I was reminded of the scandals relating to Wehrmacht idolisation, but I have no idea how how widespread a problem that is, so I’ll defer to you.
https://taz.de/Tuerken-fuer-die-AfD/!5449750/
This is about Germans with Turkish background. It’s the same as in other countries: We came here legally and are law abiding taxpayers. These illegal newcomers are criminals and ruin the image of all immigrants. It’s about law and order and strong leadership. If you vote Erdogan in Turkey, AfD is closest in Germany. The Grey Wolves are the biggest right wing extremist organizations in Germany as well, so keep that in mind.
German-Turks are also specifically targeted like in this video by Krah appealing to nationalist sentiments and referring back to German-Turkish alliance going back to WW1.
scandals relating to Wehrmacht idolisation
Yes, this happens from time to time as does other crap. The severity of these cases varies.
In 2023 the Bundeswehr let go of 62 soldiers, among them 10 officers, for extremism. It’s not just nazis, but also for example anti-vax conspiracy nutters. I don’t have any comparisons of these numbers to other armed forces.
The Bundeswehr emphasizes democratic values and educates people along their principles of Innere Führung and Staatsbürger in Uniform. For example that soldiers are ultimately serving their conscience is stressed. Structurally the Bundeswehr also has differences to other militaries. There are no separate military courts for example. Crimes involving soldiers get dealt with by regular courts.
In 2019 about 15% of soldiers have immigrant parents or immigrated themselves. Of course they can be extremists just as well.
Interesting! I found this study with an actual table of migrant political support by origin: https://www.dezim-institut.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Demo_FIS/publikation_pdf/FA-6235.pdf
Unfortunately Turks get lumped in with MENA in this one, and it comes out to around the the same as for other groups - probably because support from those derived from the rest of the Islamic world is low.
I can’t actually read German, but from the percentages not adding up I assume this is some kind of favourability rather than voting intention, and it still comes out to just 20% or so.
US Military can’t vote in German elections. The only voting population involved with the military would be NATO Aircom and even that German population would be small compared to the 80%+ turnout.
Lippe which includes GFM-Rommel-Kaserne voted CDU with 27%.
Even in Grafenwöhr CDU was around 27%.
I kind of assumed there’d be lots of German servicepeople on those bases too. Interesting that it doesn’t work that way.
So why do you think Kaiserslautern went AfD?
I want to say the anti American sentiment but also Kaiserslautern is the 2nd stop in Germany from France (first being Saarbrücken). So there may be anti immigration influence.
Additionally Kaiserslautern has lost a ton of manufacturing capabilities with the withdraw of Pfaff and Opel in the area may have caused many loss of jobs and general upset of the population.
Reuters has an interactive map where you can see the percentages for each district
Shows a bit more of a positive view in the sense if your looking at this as an American and think AFD got a majority in all east Germany, they didn’t, the bluest areas are 40-44% percent while most are at around the 32-36%, but they got the plurality. A bit depressing though in that all of west Germany they’re taking 15-20% which this map doesn’t show well
There’s the 1/5 AfD and 1/4 Union. Maybe the westies start to take the socio economic discrepancies between them and their eastern counterparts serious.
Downvote me more please.
You can’t display a map like this on map enthusiasts that gives a false representation of the election based on land area instead of population density and not be called out on it. It’s a shit way to represent data and sows more discord than gives the proper story of what happened
Hmm, that’s true.
Actually, if this wasn’t a map community I’d be more worried. In theory people here will know maps hide heterogeneity.
I think the Elsson here is that east Germany is still very much a Russian subject tbh
I think it’s time to unreunite Germany.
What was that line from WWZ again?
You caneven see the big University cities in Germany: cologne, Münster, Aachen.
Can any Germans tell me what the deal is with the Left? It looks like the only seats they’re winning are in areas you’d think of as AfD areas. Is it just a matter of the poorer more overlooked areas becoming polarised? Or are the German Left kinda tankish?
like the only seats they’re winning
Germany has proportional distribution of seats. This map doesn’t show that.
Die Linke is a continuation of the ruling party of the socialist dictatorship DDR in East Germany. It’s a collection of some literal old school o.g. tankies from the Socialist government, actual communists, democratic socialists, left social democrats who left the SPD, and people from social movements. In short it’s a mix of people left of social democrats. In East Germany it’s also a conservative party in a way for people who want the old DDR back. However it also has a strong support nowadays among the educated urban “woke” left. They reject rearmament for Germany and reject sending arms to Ukraine. Although they blame Russia for the war, they have an anti-western ideology and want to disband NATO in favor of an alliance with Russia. Kuba’s foreign policy is mentioned favorably in their election agenda.
Last year prominent tankie-ish leader Sarah Wagenknecht split off the Linke to form their own party BSW. BSW is the anti-woke left, who care about social policies first, but don’t put a focus on LGBT, want more strict immigration. They gained 4.9% in the election and thus narrowly missed getting seats in parliament. They blame NATO for the war in Ukraine. Exiting NATO in favor of an alliance with Russia is also on their agenda.
So the answer if they’re tankies is not simple. Linke is more the useful idiot of Putin, while BSW are actual Putin bootlickers.
Is it just a matter of the poorer more overlooked areas becoming polarised?
Economic issues play a role as well of course.
Here’s an interactive map so you can see the percentages better. They are only winning the eastern cities with 21-25% while in the western cities they’re getting 12-15% , so it’s not like there killing it in Berlin and doing nothing in hamburg. If you compare it to 2021, they’ve made just as much gains in the western cities as they did in the east.
I’d say it’s more about the poorer areas wanting a change either with the afd or linke/bsw. Most of the tankie elements of der linke have signed onto the bsw, so pining for the good old days of the gdr isn’t really their selling point anymore. Unless you were just pining for the higher social security and not the authoritarian state or russian domination, which is a lot of people in the east. This split is also part of the reason for their gains in the West as more left leaning people who are hesitant to be associated with the old school communist now have a party.
I’d say it’s more about the poorer areas wanting a change either with the afd or linke/bsw
Yeah thanks. That was sorta my initial guess, and I think it makes sense.
This split is also part of the reason for their gains in the West as more left leaning people who are hesitant to be associated with the old school communist now have a party.
Ah, that’s interesting. Where do the Greens sit in this? Are they not particularly left in Germany?
From what I hear the greens are pretty centrist. Like the democrats in the u.s. but with more of an emphasis on sustainability, but slowly and progressively. They tend to want to preserve the existing social safety net but not expand it like a more left wing party would, or substantially raise taxes on the wealthy. Foreign policy they’re pro Israel and pro Ukraine, as opposed to a lot of left parties that are split on Ukraine but more solidly pro palestine.
They cater to the educated middle to upper middle class urban liberals who want to see some progress on climate changes, which is less of a radical stance outside the u.s., but don’t want a radical shake up in the economic system.
You can check out there German Wikipedia page, most browsers will translate enough to understand these days.
Foreign policy they’re pro Israel
Ohh wow. Ooof. I had assumed they’d be pretty similar to the Australian Greens. I don’t know why exactly I assumed that, given I know for a fact the UK Greens and US Greens are both much less left, but that was the assumption I made. Shame it’s not true, especially if they end up being part of the governing coalition after this election.
I don’t see what you mean. The Left party’s tankie elements split off into the BSW a couple of years back, and the only seats the party picked up are in major urban centres that you’d usually expect to skew left. The reason most of them are in the East is probably historical.
I don’t see what you mean
What I mean is that they’re in Leipzig and East Berlin, not Hamburg or Frankfurt or Munich, or even West Berlin. So I was wondering why it would be that they only seem to be having success in former East Germany, which is very similar to AfD. I was wondering if any Germans had an understanding of why that might be, and perhaps if there are lessons that leftist parties elsewhere could take from that.
Iron curtain still alive.
I guess I’m moving to Köln
That’s the sound of the Royal Air Force preparing for Round 3. And Dresden property prices plummeting.
I don’t think the UK or the USA will intervene this time.
I see the land votes in Germany too
It does not. This is just a geographic breakdown, and in reality baby blue (AfD) got just 1/5 of the vote and seats (because former East Germany is less populous).
Nope. MMP.
