Well, one of the national parties stems from The Left Party and is still social, basically the ideology of the wing that gave the NSDAP their name, even though they didn't play a role in the party later on. I know the rules, no spoilers in this sub, so I will leave it here.
Didn’t we already fight two world wars because of a far right Germany?
The first WW was more Germany committing the unconscionable crime of trying to keep up with British / French Colonialism. The second was a direct result of the WW1 winners tolerating/facilitating German fascists as a counterweight to the boiling over of Eastern European communist movements.
Right up until Adolf invaded the Rhineland, the UK and the US and France were all on board with German fascists and their crusade to crush the Soviet influence in their local politics. Hell, even the antisemitism was largely in-vogue. 1930s Western Europeans were broadly in agreement that Jewish people were a pest to be ghettoized and resource to be exploited. That's why so many Jewish refugees were denied entry to the western hemisphere in the run up to the Holocaust, in stark contradiction to the number of Nazis who were afforded Rat Lines into the Americas following the war.
I'd argue the Far Right in Germany was much more a symptom of 19th century colonialism and 20th century orthodox capitalism than the explicit cause of the wars. They were the tip of the spear aimed at naive people in Africa, East Asia, and Latin America. They only became a problem when their fascist ideologies returned to the imperial core.
The war reparations that France demanded of Germany post WW1 contributed to creating an economic environment where the rise of a 'National Socialist' party seemed like a good idea to the average German.
IIRC, America and Britain tried to get France to be more reasonable and France basically said "I'll keep whipping until they stop crying"
The Dawes plan helped provide European stability at the end of the 20s, but the crushing debt was used by Hitler as a tool in his rise to power.
The result of neoliberalism, increasing wealth inequality, decades of lies and misinformation in mainstream media and refugee streams triggered by unnecessary wars and climate change.
It is INEVITABLE that Europe is going to become more and more fascist and it has nothing to do with Germany specifically. UK is arresting people for posting online about the genocide in Palestine. France is rather doing a coup than let actual socialists rule. This is the inevitable result. Nothing can change this now. Prepare for it. I'm going to build a boat.
It's an east-west problem, Nazis are especially big in former eastern Germany. Since smart young people leave the area, the loud minority of authoritative complainers increases. They completely lack empathy and are unable and unwilling to change their lives. They only want to drag everyone down and project their self-hatred about that on others. Of course, they also hate on people who want to change sth. for a better future in this area. Those idiots are still the minority, but it must be harderband harder for the normal people to live with those idiots, especially on the countryside.
It's exactly the same with the American south, anyone with an education escapes as fast as they can, leaving the uneducated poor who are recruited by the historical landed gentry through racism.
And in France we can see the liberals would rather do a coup than let actual socialists rule. The people in the east have more understanding of socialist theory and it's limitations, and they might actually understand better why the neoliberal austerity policy of Germany won't help them. So rather than inequality based on class and wealth they choose inequality based on identity like race. Because if you're getting fucked anyway, why wouldn't you.
"Uhh; is everyone forgetting a pretty significant decade in the middle of the 20th century where a man with a funny mustache rose to power and their aggression and genocidal tendencies had everyone going at it for like 5 years?"
This is happening on a regional level, east germany is way different than west. How different? I can't tell in detail, but demographics and worldviews are the two more salient categories for such differences.
This is a reaction to far-right Islamists becoming German citizens, something the left is unable to address because it feels honorbound to tolerate intolerance from anybody
Somehow the small detail that increasing the number of people seeking jobs in certain domains (especially unspecialized occupations) is almost entirely only a win in a host country for businesses (because they can pay less for workers since adding more people to the worker pool tilts the Offer-Demand balance in the job market in their favor) and possibly a certain well-of middle class (who get cheap food delivery, cheap quasi-taxi service and cheap house-cleaners) who are politically represented by the Right not the Left, seems to fly over the heads of the mindless parrots repeating such "blame the left for immigration" slogans.
Mind you, this many decades into Neoliberalism, pretty much all "center"/"moderate" parties (i.e. the larger ones) in Europe are Rightwing Neoliberals, including the ones claiming to be "Center-Left" (notice how often they talk about what's "good for businesses" and how measures to "support businesses" including subsidies are never limited to only those businesses which have been determined to be good for Society and often help large highly exploitative/extractive businesses who evade taxes), so it's somewhat understandable that people see such supposedly Leftwing parties defending open door immigration (because as I explained above, it benefits the people who have them in their pocket) and are easily led to conclude that the Leftwing is pro-immigration.
It doesn't help that some fake-Left liberal numpties hailing from the upper middle class who parrot Anglo-Saxon Identity Politics and have no clue how the other 90% actually live, relentlessly pose as some kind of pro-immigration Leftwing when the traditional Leftwing is all about representing the local workers and the local poor and wouldn't at all put helping the workers and poor abroad above helping the ones they represent. Many people hear such fake-Lefties defending the kind of open-door immigration that won't affect them as scions of the upper middle and upper class, as some kind of duty to help other people, and think such individuals represent the Left.
In the middle of all this, immigrants (who are neither better people nor worse people that the locals) are just doing the same thing as most other people - living their lives and trying to do what's best for themselves - many having moved to another country deceived about the kind of life they could get there and how they would be accepted, only to work in shitty jobs, having to pay through their noses for their accommodation in overinflated housing markets and be made scapegoats for accepting the invitation of certain local politicians doing for selfish reason and who aren't the ones getting the blame.
The far-right islamists aren't the problem populists make them out to be in germany. The solution they provide is also very xenophobiv and will only make stuff worse. This isn't a reaction to them it's just the german people failing to recognize what is true and what you shouldn't believe in politics. Also it's very attractive to listen to the simple solutions these parties suggest instead of actually finding something that would fix the problem
take a close look at a case where a convicted criminal hasn't lost their protection despite being a previously recognized fugitive
look at the reasons why a court has difficulties with it
look at the situation that caused the crime
decide what to do with the laws or the situation of the fugitives
Populism is just being a lazy fuck and don't even start to search for any solutions. And being a lazy fuck is the primary problem with all those nazi fans in Germany.
Populism is simple explanations meant for simple people.
Same reason why Religion got so popular and it's still so popular: it gives people the simple <deity> did it explanation for things which would be way harder for one to feel they understood if they got the Scientific explanation.
It's amazing how many people have an strong emotional rejection of anything even in the slightest way complex, especially as they age - I suspect they're not even aware that their anger at being given complex explanations is not about the contents of the explanation but about the unpleasant feeling when one has difficulty following something.
If I remember it correctly there are studies showing that people who fall for Rightwing Populist tend to be less intelligent and/or less educated.
It’s actually pretty insane how quickly the extreme right has evolved from: “we are against immigration of Muslims because they are intolerant to Western values” towards antisemitism, bigotry towards LGBTQ and love of Putins authoritarianism. The daylight between fundamentalist Islam and parties like AFD is getting smaller and smaller. The only difference is, you guessed it, the color of their skin.
Oh yea, the native German far right have a grab basket of abhorrent BS behind whatever popular legitimate grievance is the hot topic in the country. German anxiety about far-right Islamists is the gateway drug to the pro-Putin ideological buffet
a reaction to far-right Islamists becoming German citizens
I mean, its certainly reactionary. But so much of the response is hysterical. It isn't rooted in current events nearly so much as it is a response to mass media fixating on Muslims as The Other and overreporting - even straight up fabricating - events intended to make Muslims look uniquely dangerous.
the left is unable to address because it feels honorbound to tolerate intolerance from anybody
Antisemitism Islamphobia is the Socialism of Fools.
German labor leaders need to incorporate migrant laborers into their coalitions or they will continue to be a wedge that drives apart the older generation from the new. As it stands, the miniscule number of new Muslim workers have become the scapegoats in a global capitalist project to dismantle European domestic industry.
Germans are turned at each others throats so that their landlords can pick their pockets and loot their corpses when the killing is done.
I'm not far right myself. I'm a Canadian Trudeau voter. I'm just saying that I think seeing far-right Islamists triggers the native far-right in Germany more than Trudeau triggers anti-vaxxers in Canada