AfD hopes for further gains in east Germany as state elections loom

She doesn’t like the AfD – something that can feel like a rogue opinion around here.

“Half the people here didn’t vote for the AfD,” she reminds us, adding she is “devastated” by local levels of support for a far-right party.

But why are they so popular, I ask?

“That’s a good question,” says Katrin. “That’s what I ask myself all the time.”

“There is an old saying,” she recalls. “If a donkey is too comfortable it goes on black ice.”

Katrin is saying that she believes life, actually, is relatively good for people in the community, leading to a misguided “grass-is-greener” syndrome – whether that’s with an eye on the past or present.

Average wage levels and household wealth are lower in the east when compared to the west, although inequalities have narrowed through the years.

Overall, Katrin doesn’t understand it. “I’m still thinking myself, why, why, why?”

You get the feeling that mainstream parties, including those in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government, are similarly unable to quite comprehend, or respond, to the success of either the AfD or BSW, parties polling nationally at about 18% and 8% respectively.

The traditional parties of power are casting a nervous eye to the east and the Germany’s reputation for relatively calm, consensus politics is under strain.