all of these things and obviously also politically the f.t. is much stronger in these in these states than it is in western western states but i have to say i don't agree with you on that it would be a catastrophe for democracy if the left party and the city you went into a coalition in book i think it's actually quite interesting. contests trees for democracy if not interesting that they're just raised on the list. what you need in new york chrissy is is. a balance between right and left and and if you have the seed you really forming a coalition with what used to be the communist governmental body in east germany just to prevent. to avoid going into a collision with a de then i think democracy really is being stretched to its head and it. interesting though it might be to see it's within its head that's not something something i'd like it would also be hypocritical because quite frankly the if de is

not worse than the left party you have both pseudo toted totalitarian. democratic anti west anti nato anti european parties and i don't agree with me i just come back to the question of the unification and the success of reunification ality hernot has said that in many ways east and west absolutely have integrated and converge but michel if we look at surveys recent surveys we see significant divergences in political attitudes for example one survey shows a great deal less support for democracy itself in the east than in the west i think it's 42 percent of east germans said they're enthusiastic about democracy compared with 75 percent of west germans too what do you attribute that kind of divergence and in fact less than half support in east germany for the system itself

well essentially because in the eastern part democracy didn't deliver the goods it delivered new roads it's a divots infrastructure but it killed tens of thousands of jobs and i think it's safe to say that for east germans if you saw this complete turnaround of the political system in $89.00 the price was a very high $1.00 to pay and there's a lot of debate in germany about these broken biographies. people who never really found their feet professionally again. this essential breach of what they thought was kind of of path towards within safe jobs i mean that's one thing that you still need to deliver. right now the government is discussing and that will probably go ahead a package worth $40000000000.00 euros to pay for restructuring of industry

related to cold most of that will be in these eastern states just to put it into perspective the finance minister reckons that a crisis the size of the financial crisis would cost germany 50000000000 euro so that is a lot of money that is now sent east but the experience of people in the east is that money didn't really solve the structural problems i want to come back to the economics in just a moment but. looking at your opening statement talking about an authoritarian revolt say a little bit if you would about political attitudes in the east what did you mean by that and does that mean you see this far right party the a.f.d. as a north or a terry and party. yes i'd like to go to court you said because to say that democracy didn't deliver is simply wrong of course we delivered we live democracy itself we delivered freedom of speech we delivered freedom of movement we delivered freedom of expression we delivered

a party democracy apart which works as proved by the fact that the f.t. and the old left are allowed to take part in parliamentary elections the whole point if i make my if i say oh i'm for democracy as long as i'm as as i'm ok as long as the as the economy is ok then i'm not a democrat and that's the trouble with the with the germans generally in 933 when when in 13233 when economy went downhill the americans voted franklin d. roosevelt and the germans were voted hitler and now after. from 33 to 89. east germany was under. the fascist then communist rule they didn't know anything about democracy they never learned about democracy they weren't taught about democracy and now they're revolting against democracy and it's the old men who never bothered who never question themselves who. in fact agree with the

system would be their peace with the system now they found another outlet for their horrible anti democratic attitudes it's just a terrible terrible thing we were much too lenient on them after reunification but i mean you actually that's exactly the point this is the thing that east germans resent if you travel to saxony to them democracy didn't deliver on their expectations of what they. promised and the last thing they want right now from politicians is to be elected on how democratic they are and whether their opinion is valid or not and this is exactly what leads to such broad support. for the far right whether you agree with it or not it's a phantom phenomenon and it's that i think that they do it they want their experiences to be validated they want these broken biographies as you call them to be to be seen by the mainstream of dermont and mainstream media to just be

part of germany and be seen as like part of it and not the. we're sort of cast off fly over country but i just want to ask one thing about a point that is often asserted in connection with political attitudes and support for the f.t. namely the idea that it reflects the communist area era socialization of order germans and even a kind of nostalgia for an easier time do you think that's true yeah definitely and i also think that germans weren't good democrats in the fifty's they weren't good democrats in the sixty's they had the economic one there are the vicious one a and that's how that went on until the seventy's and so that's how they became democrats of because the u.s. forced it upon them and then they had

a good good experience with demarc democracy so it's stuck sort of you know to put it in a nutshell but and that didn't and that didn't happen in eastern germany obviously they got all this money they got all this restructuring of infrastructure of streets and so forth but they didn't have the experience and they did they were the creators of this well they won whether well yeah but but i think that that's part of the problem we've got is that it is the reason they never want to let me just make the cut here because we do have a little report that will allow us to dig a bit deeper on the economic aspects of unification and perhaps many remember during the election campaign that directly followed the fall of the berlin wall then chancellor helmut kohl promised east germans that they would see their region blossom now unemployment has fallen dramatically since the ninety's wages and salaries are rising and many of the region cities are booming yet ongoing

dissatisfaction very much is driving support for right wing populist. november 9th 1989 the berlin wall comes down and the iron curtain. barely 11 months later germany is reunified. with depression landscapes the leaders promised haven't materialized instead eastern german industry has been languishing more than a 1000000 eastern germans are out of work. western germany still dominates the economy not a single tax listed corporation is based in the east. 15 the refugee crisis brings feelings of discontent in the east to critical mass. increasingly migrants are seen as competitors for both jobs and social benefits. 2000000000 euros of investment are helping the east to catch up with the west clutch at around 70 percent unemployment is still above the average in the west. eastern germans 2nd class

citizens. let me put that question to michelle or are you stand german 2nd class citizens the question that ma says when individuals go into a polling booth is whether they feel that they are 2nd class citizens and saxony is the economically most successful eastern state bats with the a if t. is likely to come out potentially as the strongest policy that's where the c.d.u. is now they're about there's a margin of 56 percent seaview is ahead they're getting a bit more relaxed about it but where there is a real race between going to merkel c.d.u. pasi region on the on the far right if t. so many feel 2nd class citizens it's a generational question very much as well but if you look at a map of how much disposable income there is you can still quite clearly see where

the wall stood between east and west germany and that is where this entire part of the. country locks behind that also can't put down a payment for their kids in central then as many west germans do and this has an impact on how people feel in the east and it's a very emotive election campaign that's for sure ellen i'm sure that many of our viewers and certainly all of us here will remember that famous bill clinton quote from one of his own election campaigns when he said if the economy stupid meaning it always comes down to the pocketbook now here's another paradox in surveys east germans express levels of personal economic satisfaction pretty much comparable with those in the west so what's going on here is this 2nd class feeling about something other than economics you know it's the economy stupid is a stupid phrase and should have known that. people vote but let's not go

into that. it's the demography stupid look during before the war went up in 161 the educated people the doctors the university professors engineers they all left the country with their potential offspring then it between 61 and the world coming down 18 and anyone who was courageous enough to foot strong enough about democracy to leave chance did since 989 people have seen chances in the west and gone there you have a brain drain a drain of people who feel for democracy with the civic spirit courage and what's left quite frankly they may be 1st class citizens as far as their rights a concern but no yes they are a negative selection of the german population let's face it that's stupid to the us and that's why more of them are voting for stupid policies so i don't i don't think that's true and i also know i'm very willing there in the past few years they've

actually been migration back to eastern germany and in fact. growing now yes because well because they need people don't they who are not so stupid we have also been there not allowing immigration in we getting this huge influx of people with the get up and go spirit from syria from africa through this and then we don't want them because that they don't they want to stew in their own juice and they feel happy like that they're like little englanders they're like the trump supporters the people who are a negative so that there's going to have to be a demographic solution to this because thank goodness. some young people are going back to these and maybe they have. a better view of things let me just let me just ask you this certainly there has been massive d. population in some areas of the east and a number of surveys show a correlation between support for the far right and areas where do population has occurred and that is not confined to germany alone we're seeing

a similar phenomenon in the u.s. and other places where there is increasing support for the right wing but here's another paradox for me in precisely the same areas there is a great deal of resentment against migration when in fact those areas theoretically need immigration more than any other places in the country valerie how would you explain that i'm stuck but i don't understand it either i and i also don't understand the inherent racism that that is privy to most of these places so i feel like i really don't understand that also because. the eastern german. you'd think a lot of them understand how the west helped eastern germany after the fall of the wall so maybe they could be more open to migration but that is clearly not the case i think it's you know studies have shown that if you don't have migration you're more critical to it and eastern germany didn't have migration and that from the

socialistic brother country with. those where those were only a few and they were very much kept separate from the public so they weren't even allowed to really interact so there was never any basis of sort of understanding of multiculturalism i think that's a big part michaud tell us a little bit about the role of the a.f.p. in connection with. anti migration sentiment in fact it's become an absolute signature issue for the a.f.p. what's driving that well because it's clearly resonated with voters on the opinion polls the being an anti euro party it then took a turn to the right and now to the very far right in pots and it was almost vanishing from the political scene when 2015 came around what became known as the migration crisis in germany you can video follow that line quite easily and

they foster and the if do you will admit so an individual conversations that is the issue that made the big migration their islam they've toned down the rhetoric to a certain degree because they discovered the opportunity of saying we are the real people picking up on slogans of those protests in 1989 and they are giving people a voice who feel that they couldn't be openly against foreigners and they couldn't open the be racist and that certainly is something where the public debate in germany has a take. so the f.t. allan instrumental izing anti foreigner sentiment. for the sake of the issue itself or for the sake of political power and perhaps are so driving opposition to the so-called elite in berlin well you'd have to ask them wouldn't you. i mean i know some people like france alex and the garland who was

almost a friend of mine he's not an inherent racist but he uses it right on the other hand a what's his name on hookah. in interior india he is a racist through and through so and garlands working with them together in the same party i mean. look again people the found founder of the social democratic party said i'm to semitism is the socialism of the stupid guys and racism of all kinds is the socialism the stupid guy's right it's pointing down to other people who are even below me in social status and declaring war on them and this is stupid right and and so an apology which appeals to stupid sentiment and gets 20 percent.