How the historical memory of Nazism (partly) explains the success of the far right in Germany and Austria

The far right is on the rise in Europe, and it is most successful in countries that avoided taking responsibility for the crimes of National Socialism after World War II. Just look at the map of the elections on 23 February in Germany and those of 29 September, 2024, in Austria. Nationalist-populist parties are hegemonic in what was, until 1990, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and in Austria. Both are territories that, unlike West Germany, for decades considered that the history of the Nazis did not concern them.

In the eastern German regions, Alternative for Germany (AfD) won by a landslide with 34% of the vote, far ahead of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). In the former Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), AfD made decisive gains and won millions of votes and seats, but with 18% of the vote it was far behind the CDU, the largest party. Last autumn, the Freedom Party (FPÖ) was the favourite in Austria with 28.8% of the vote, although a coalition of Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, and Liberals will leave it in opposition.

The reasons for the success of the far right are complex, from resentment against the elites to nationalist withdrawal, Europhobia, rejection of immigration, or fear of the social decline of the middle classes. In Austria, the phenomenon has been gaining ground since the 1990s. In Germany, it is a more recent occurrence: a platform founded in 2013 that has continued to garner support while radicalizing its discourse against immigration and becoming, in little more than a decade, the second-largest group in the Bundestag.

In both the Austrian and German election campaigns, expressions were heard that reflected this particular relationship with history. Herbert Kickl, the FPÖ candidate in Austria, said that he would be the Volkskanzler, or people’s chancellor, as Adolf Hitler was described before he became the Führer of Nazism and Germany. At an AfD rally in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, Trumpist tycoon Elon Musk said: “There is too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that.” A full-blown correction of the culture of memory that has prevailed in Germany.

Voting for these parties coincides with the territories that, as sociologist Rainer Lepsius theorized in the 1980s, “externalized” the memory of National Socialism and the Holocaust. Lepsius studied what he called “the three successor states of the Greater German Reich.” That is, the West-based FRG, the Soviet-controlled GDR, and neutral Austria. For the latter, which was long considered “Hitler’s first victim,” Nazism “was of secondary importance, belonging to the history of Germany and not its own,” wrote Lepsius. For the communist regime in East Germany, “the content and consequences of National Socialism did not belong to the history of the GDR itself, but to the history of the Federal Republic, which remained [like Nazi Germany] capitalist.”

Historian Tony Judt explained in his monumental book Postwar that “the Austrians simply forgot about their involvement with Hitler.” “In East Germany,” he added, “where the burden of responsibility for Nazism was placed solely on Hitler’s heirs in West Germany, the new regime paid restitution not to the Jews but to the Soviet Union.”

The different intensity of historical awareness helps to explain, for example, why in some countries or regions the so-called cordon sanitaire — the union of all parties to prevent the extremists from gaining power — is stronger than in others. In Austria, the far right has already participated in several federal governments and has a presence in regional executives. In Germany, although the cordon sanitaire — known as the Brandmauer, or firewall — is still in force, if it is ever broken, it is likely to happen in one of the East German regional parliaments where AfD is the first or second force. This raises the question: To what extent is the success of AfD and FPÖ in these territories, and the tolerance of their message, explained by the deficit of historical memory compared to West Germany?

Norbert Frei, professor emeritus at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena in the eastern state of Thuringia, says that “for a historian the question is purely speculative and cannot be answered with direct sources.” But he adds: “In fact, the externalization of National Socialism in Austria — even though Hitler was Austrian — and in the GDR has had long-term consequences for political culture.”

Frei has studied in-depth how Germans dealt with their Nazi past, with works such as 1945 and us, or The Third Reich in the German Consciousness. In an email, he recalls: “Austria was long cast in the role of the victim as an occupied country in 1938. The GDR claimed to have solved the problem because of the flight of a large part of the Nazi elite to the West and because of its own anti-fascism imposed from above. However, the scandal-ridden confrontation with the Nazi past in the West led subsequent generations to deal with National Socialism much more intensively.”

Frei concludes: “I find it plausible, although it is certainly difficult to prove empirically, that this [in the West] led to a greater sensitivity towards the AfD.” And the former GDR? “It is clear that the successes of the AfD, particularly in the East, are also explained by a successful management of resentment towards the remembrance work [Aufarbeitung, in German] regarding National Socialism.” He clarifies: “There is a feeling that [the memory process] is part of the duties imposed by the West. And nationalism, which has been less critically reflected on in East Germany, probably plays a role in this.”

The culture of memory and the taboo on nationalism are, according to this perception, an imposition on the East from the West. Another grievance that would feed a party that, like AfD, acts as an identity or regionalist party of the former GDR.

But the rise of the party in the West shows that it is now more than just an East German party. Its candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel, was a pure product of West Germany. And in this part of Germany, in absolute numbers, the AfD has far more votes and seats than in the former East Germany, which is less populated and has fewer seats in the Bundestag.

Given recent results in Europe, East Germany and Austria are increasingly the norm. And West Germany — or, one might add, Spain, where Vox has never been the second most-voted party and is a long way from being the first — is the exception. But for how long? The border of memory — between countries that, like the FRG, made the study and responsibility for crimes committed in the name of their country a central part of their identity, and those that have shied away from this task — is rapidly dissolving.

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