From Skinhead-Subculture to Radical Right Movement: The Development of a ‘National Opposition’ in East Germany

Abstract

AbstractAs the regime collapsed in 1989/90, it became clear that an extreme right movement had already developed in East Germany. Its origins and development have been variously interpreted as, first, an outcome of the conditions the GDR, second, a result of the Wende, the great change, and third, an outcome of the unification process. This article integrates all three interpretations. It shows how a heterogeneous, politically diffuse skinhead milieu arose as the first extreme right cliques began to develop in the GDR; how, at the time of the Wende, it acquired a radically nationalistic political orientation; and how it became part of a pan-German ‘national opposition’ in the reunited Germany.