who never bothered who never questioned themselves who who who in fact agreed with the system would be their peace with the system now they found another outlet for their horrible antidemocratic attitudes it's just a terrible terrible thing we were much too lenient on them after reunification but i love you actually that's exactly the point this is the thing that you sermons resent if you travel to saxony to them democracy didn't deliver on their expectations of what they feel they really think 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 biography things you called 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 wonder that's the tough one a and that's how that went on until in 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 of the 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're going to be as the phrase 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 populism. november 9th 1989 the berlin wall comes down and the iron curtain current. barely 11 months later germany is reunified. but to flourish in 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. germany 15 the refugee crisis brings feelings of discontent in the east to critical matters. 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 but at around 70

percent unemployment is still above the average in the west are eastern germans 2nd class citizens. without question to michelle or are eastern german 2nd class citizens the question that ma says when individuals go into a polling booth is whether they feel they are 2nd class citizens and saxony is the economically most successful eastern state and 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 said you was ahead they're getting a bit more relaxed about it but what is a real race between going to michael c. do you posse region on the on the far right if t. so many feel 2nd class citizens and 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 it's the economy stupid meaning it always comes down to the pocketbook now here's another paradox in surveys is chairman to 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 between 61 and the wall coming down 18 and anyone who was courageous enough to foot strong enough about democracy to leave chanced it 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 the best stupider than 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 going to be living there in the past few years they've actually been migration back to eastern germany and at that. growing well yes because well because they need people don't they who are not so stupid we have also been there not allowing immigration in regarding 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 selection that'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 deep 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 stumped 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. 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 that. 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's something where the public debate in germany has a take. the. 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 well you'd have to ask them wouldn't you

. i mean i know some people like francis alex and the garland who is almost a friend of mine he's not an inherent racist but he uses it right on the other hand what's his name. in your 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 and to some it isn't 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 obviously thinks this is what the if he thinks the 20 percent of the people in the east is stupid and if they get the election results then they'll be proved right

but it's up to these germans root for them wrong not up to us sitting here in the studio pontificating but what does that make alexander gulen and then he let me say enough already that makes him a horrible opportunistic. a person who's using that. to get his own back on the american who's never he's never by the way he's german there are those there are. other true also there's a lot of innovation in the east i really don't want to let that stand the germans are more stupid than the western germans i don't think that's true of a high proportion of stupid people well there is the demography is different a lot of a lot of people who start chance of left their left that's what you said and and so there is there is the brain obviously and the ninety's were really hard and there were lots of nazis that weren't addressed in the in the g.d.r. and so there are all these issues and they're cumulating to what we're now seeing

let me just ask you this because we're almost out of time and i'd like to at least briefly hear from all of you should the far right in fact make significant gains in the elections on sunday what do governments at both regional and federal level need to be doing to stop this trend and i'm going to have to us for the briefest of possible answers well they are a democratic party they need to be dbus to 5 by being seen what they are and that might see them in a regional government somewhere in the near future but they are no when the of being in power in central government i would just size parties not to change the rules to avoid them that's also part of democracy thank you own can i just agree certain that never happened but it's a lot of time for valerie. and about 30 saying. well i think i do think that it's important that they don't think don't get in power even in fact here in front of books and i think that. the democratic party should have

a little more faith in society and themselves and. i very much hope that we're going to decline over the next couple of months and years thank you. much taller than you for being with us today and thanks to you out there for tuning in to see yourself about. the atlantic.