The Roots of Neo-Fascism in East Germany

By Jacob Yasko – February 22,2025

The fall of the Berlin Wall enabled neo-fascist activity to spill over into East Germany, laying the groundwork for the strengthening of right-wing forces today

On November 9, 1989, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) relinquished its border security to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). While the world watched images of euphoric citizens pouring into West Berlin, the political reality of the moment was far more sobering: the opening of the border sealed the future of socialism in Germany. What followed was annexation, accompanied by economic liquidation, mass unemployment and the subjugation of the entire GDR population under a new order.

The FRG, designed as a frontline state against socialism, had long incorporated far-right elements into its institutions. In this context, the Berlin Wall was not just a border, but also a protective barrier against fascism. After 1989, neo-fascist groups rapidly expanded into East Germany, reinforcing the argument that the Wall had served as a defense against reactionary forces. Even figures like John F. Kennedy understood that without the Wall, conflict was inevitable. The same claim was later supported by Heinz Kessler and Fritz Streletz, who presented extensive evidence on the subject in their book Without the Wall, There Would Have Been War.

Yet, to this day, bourgeois authors and politicians attempt to shift blame for the rise of neo-fascist movements in East Germany to the GDR. By doing so, they ignore a crucial reality: after the annexation, anti-fascism and communist consciousness were fought against through a calculated political campaign. This was driven by West German authorities just as much as fascist currents that moved into the region to reshape its ideological landscape.

The protective wall
While West German media incited hostility against migrants, the FRG was stripping the GDR of its economic resources, dismantling industries, and destroying hundreds of thousands of livelihoods. At the same time, the so-called “reappraisal” of the GDR’s history was underway—a process in which neo-fascist actors played a direct role. Former Marxist professors were purged from universities, anti-fascist monuments were demolished, and figures from the Nazi era were rehabilitated, while the GDR’s long-standing anti-fascist culture was banished. Now, 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is crucial to examine how the destruction of these border fortifications paved the way for an unprecedented influx of neo-fascist groups into East Germany.

Even before the opening of the border, West German neo-fascists were smuggling music and propaganda into the GDR, embedding themselves within the skinhead and hooligan scenes. This trend intensified with time, aided in part by the Community of Like-Minded People of the New Front (Gesinnungsgemeinschaften der Neuen Front, GdNF), a network set up by neo-Nazi cadre Michael Kühnen. The organization gathered numerous fascists, including individuals who had previously served prison sentences in the GDR before being redeemed by the FRG—after which they quickly resumed spreading the poison of anti-communism and racism.

In the 1980s, Kühnen’s network developed into a larger umbrella organization with contacts not only in the GDR, but also in other countries. The GdNF had dozens of front structures and held close contacts with numerous parties, while its leadership structures were riddled with informants who invested their generous salaries from the German domestic intelligence agency (Verfassungsschutz) into far-right political work.

Kühnen himself held strong connections to intelligence services. While the Lower Saxony Verfassungsschutz claimed it had lost all files on such activities, a dossier from the GDR State Security uncovered these connections. GDR’s agencies had been investigating Kühnen since 1970 and documented that after his release from prison in 1982, he was picked up by a vehicle linked to Verfassungsschutz. The conclusion of GDR investigations was that Kühnen’s years in prison were likely used to recruit him as an informant or secure other forms of cooperation.

A few years later, Kühnen authored a strategic document, Workplan East (Arbeitsplan Ost), outlining a blueprint for the network’s expansion into the GDR. This plan guided various neo-fascist organizations and front groups, with the fall of the Berlin Wall serving as their signal to act. Kühnen himself claimed that he was able to cross into the GDR “with the help of local comrades,” setting the stage for an influx of far-right cadres into the region. In the months that followed, dozens of leading figures from Kühnen’s network, as well as members of the New Right, followed his example.

Building a neo-fascist movement
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, neo-fascist groups quickly took root in the former GDR, occupying properties and establishing strongholds in various neighborhoods. Violence and pogroms targeting anti-fascists and foreigners soon followed, particularly against young people. Under the patronage of Michael Kühnen and the GdNF, offshoots of the Free German Workers’ Party (Freiheitliche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) and the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) emerged, alongside dozens of new organizations such as the Lichtenberger Front and Deutsche Alternative. By March 1990, neo-fascists were openly joining anti-GDR demonstrations, exploiting their anti-communist sentiment to gain visibility.

Despite being marginalized by the FRG’s policies, anti-fascist resistance persisted. Protesters fought against the remodeling of concentration camps, the demolition of monuments, and the infiltration of universities by Western far-right groups. Even Rainer Eppelmann, head of the Commission for the Reappraisal of GDR History, acknowledged widespread public support for preserving the GDR’s anti-fascist legacy.

The December 1990 amnesty for political prisoners further galvanized the ranks of neo-fascists in East Germany. Among them were perpetrators of the Zionskirche attack and figures like Ingo Hasselbach, later known as the “Führer of Berlin.” Many of these cadres, released from prison or arriving from West Germany, actively built fascist networks, held recruitment events, and invited prominent extremists from abroad. British Holocaust denier David Irving, for instance, was brought to Dresden by the Deutsche Volksunion to push the myth of the “Allied bombing holocaust,” with his expenses covered by West German millionaire and neo-fascist financier Gerhard Frey.

In the time surrounding the final days of annexation of the GDR approached, neo-fascist violence escalated dramatically. On the night of October 2–3, 1990, over 1,500 armed neo-Nazis launched coordinated attacks against anti-fascists, squatters, and migrants across East Germany, with 30 violent incidents recorded in multiple cities. These attacks were part of a broader surge in far-right activity. Earlier that year, Ingo Hasselbach, in collaboration with Michael Kühnen, had founded the National Alternative in Berlin, stockpiling weapons and organizing paramilitary training. Nazi slogans such as “Rotfront Verrecke” (“Rotfront perish”) and “Kanaken Raus” (“Immigrants out”) were openly chanted at protests, while Jewish cemeteries, Red Army graves, and the Soviet war memorial at Treptower Park were vandalized. However, such provocations did not go unanswered—on January 3, 1990, 250,000 GDR citizens mobilized in a mass anti-fascist protest.

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State backing and support
The wave of far-right violence in the early 1990s only continued to grow, with 1992 recording more violent right-wing extremist crimes than any year since 1949. This surge was enabled by the deliberate inaction of German authorities and intelligence services, and a media landscape that promoted racist smear campaigns and narratives. In cities like Dresden, Leipzig, Halle, Jena and Weimar, right-wing mobs were able to carry out attacks and arson assaults almost unhindered. Pogroms in Hoyerswerda and Rostock were not only tolerated, but took place amid media coverage of the so-called “asylum problem,” while the police routinely failed to act.

The CDU/FDP federal government used the wave of racist violence to further fuel the so-called asylum debate that it had sparked, with the Social Democrats soon falling into the same line. In 1993, the basic right to asylum was abolished. Politicians pushed for this outcome by promoting xenophobia: immediately after the Rostock-Lichtenhagen mob attacks, Schwerin CDU leader Eckhardt Rehberg declared: “The fact that foreigners do not know our customs and traditions, and perhaps do not even want to, disturbs our citizens’ sensitivities.“

The refascization of East Germany
The “baseball bat years,” as the media called them, were far more than street violence by neo-fascist gangs. The opening of the borders accelerated a targeted re-fascization of East Germany, facilitated by the political and media establishments. Within a short period, anti-fascist and communist positions were marginalized, while neo-fascist movements provided a violent mechanism to intimidate opponents and absorb let-down youth.

At the same time, the ideological offensive of the New Right gained ground within the political establishment. Anti-fascist organizations were banned, history rewritten, and monuments, schools, and streets were stripped of their GDR-era names. These processes did not come out of the blue: in contrast to the GDR’s systematic persecution of fascists and war criminals, West Germany reinstated former Nazi officials into government and administration long ago. While ex-concentration camp inmates held office in the GDR, their former tormentors returned to positions of power in the FRG.

The dismantling of GDR anti-fascism and the rise of a neo-fascist movement in East Germany were two sides of the same coin—an ongoing process still visible today, 35 years after the fall of the border. Anyone seeking the roots of today’s far-right resurgence need look no further than the rulers of the Federal Republic, where fascism was never truly eradicated after 1945.

(Peoples Dispatch)