- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
A 22-year-old German politician who secretly served in Ukraine’s army now faces expulsion from the pro-Russian Alternative for Germany party after calling his own leadership “Russia-kissers.”
Does someone know what’s the overall sentiment of the German far-right wing to the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Obviously the AfD is pro-Russia, and the far-right shares similar views on queer people - or “LGBT extremism” as the Russian state calls it - for example, but on the other hand I can also see them showing sympathy for Ukraine with controversial figures like Oleksandr Alfiorov as head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory.
The modern far-right is heavily Pro-Russia overall. It’s the strongest in East Germany where there is also a lot of nostalgia for the GDR, both from the right and the left.
Add in some public AfD-figures making claims like “Hitler was a communist” and there is just infinite confusion and anyone ends up being free to believe whatever fits their view.
So you have far-right people opposing Ukraine because Ukraine had a Nazi-Battalion and you have far-right people claiming the Nazis were actually leftists. There’s no logic to be found here, but it all boils down to them being fans of Russia and gobbling up whatever gets pushed in their Facebook/Instagram/Twitter-Feeds.
I found a (possibly outdated) interesting German analysis paper by the Amadeu Antonio Foundation from March 2022 on how right wing extremists and conspiracy ideologists reacted to the conflict.
As it was mentioned, most of the far right (especially the AfD of course) is pro Russia. There is a smaller Nazi party called “Der III. Weg” (The third way) which is an interesting outlier though. They’re very pro Ukraine since they had good contacts with the Azov battalion even before the war. They claim that Ukraine is “fighting against Caucasian invaders of Europe”, call Russia “Neo bolshevists”, say they are supporting “anti white riots” in Africa and so on.
I am not german so i don’t know either, but Russia doesn’t have enough influence to force people to believe their stories. I believe even people who agree with Putin from a political point of view understand his invasion wasn’t called for. They know Zelensky isn’t a nazi. Even if they buy the story of NATO having expanded too far east they are often not against being in NATO for example. It is interesting there seems to be a difference in how the party leaders treat Russia and how their voters view Russia.
What i think matters most is not what they think but rather how much they care. Their nationalism comes from a need to care for themselves first, it’s a kind of egoism that i think is rooted in a falsely perceived threat (There are no houses/jobs, because foreigners took them. The taxes are too high because there are too many lazy people living off benefits. There is no good healthcare/education because CEO’s earn too much)*. These threats they perceive are much bigger problems, so they can’t afford to worry about that that war in Ukraine. They will say it’s not really our business anyway, we shouldn’t meddle with foreign affairs. Let the Russians deal with this.
* before i get dogpiled, i’m not saying that it isn’t a problem if there is a lack of housing and jobs, there are high taxes and health care and education are unaffordable; my point is they see an enemy that cause these issues intentionally and they need to fight that enemy (foreigners/lazy people/CEO’s).
European far-right are similar to republicans in Russia’s eyes. We cannot know how much money and influence there is between Russia and them but it is clear that they are the side Russia supports. Obviously it is entire possible that a far-right party isn’t financially or otherwise supported by Russia, but even if they are not at all, the party will have a similar views of the world.
There are enough right wing and conspiracy theories channels on social media that will spread their lies to the last boomer and Facebook moms. Russia doesn’t need much to spread their ideas, just a few believable looking news sites run by them, and enough local influencers who share their stories in the German right wing bubbles to confirm what the people already believe.
Expensive housing is caused by zoning laws. It is intentional, just not organised by foreigners and lazy people.
I’d like to add detail to that
The German equivalent of zoning laws are certainly an issue, but the main drivers of housing costs are firstly mismatched supply/demand because of internal migration & regulations that favor existing tenants (plus ofc immigration). And we’ve got expensive building standards. Like… even if you build to a “low” standard today, it is more luxurious than any of the like seven places I’ve lived in.