Germany’s Far Right Loves One Migrant Group: Russian Germans

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has long stoked anti-immigration sentiment, but it’s making an exception for many Russian-speaking migrants from the former Soviet Union.

This was evident on a recent Tuesday, when AfD politicians hosted a meeting in the German parliament to shed light on the conditions facing so-called Russlanddeutschen, or Russian Germans — ethnic Germans from the post-Soviet space who settled in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

“The fate of Russian Germans and their future in Germany and elsewhere is close to our hearts,” said Jürgen Braun, an AfD parliamentarian, during the event.

The event illustrated the AfD’s ever-more-focused efforts to appeal to an estimated 5 million immigrants in Germany who hail from the former Soviet Union, about half of whom are Russian Germans. Though Russian-speakers in Germany are by no means a singular bloc — and the group increasingly includes many Ukrainians and Russian dissidents who are repelled by the AfD’s Kremlin-friendly stances — their political power in Germany is broadly set to grow amid continuing migration from former Soviet states and the easing of German citizenship rules.

That helps explain why, a year ahead of a federal election and with current polls putting the AfD in second place, politicians in the party are making a concerted effort to reach Russian speakers — particularly Russian Germans, also referred to in Germany as “late resettlers.” During the parliamentary group meeting, AfD politicians called for raising pension payments for Russian Germans, and for removing obstacles for further immigration from Russia.

It is a striking policy agenda for a party that has often vilified immigrants but sees the segments of the post Soviet diaspora as a potential electoral boon.

“They are trying to become an exclusive party for Russian-speakers, supposedly by defending their interests,” said Dmitri Stratievski, director of the Eastern Europe Centre in Berlin. {snip}

Beatrix von Storch, an AfD parliamentarian, suggested the Russlanddeutschen — who descend from German emigres to the Russian Empire — were indeed reciprocating the party’s attention.

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The borough of Marzahn-Hellersdorf on the eastern outskirts of Berlin is known for its high concentration of immigrants from Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union. Dotted with East German-era apartment blocks, it also happens to be among the most far-right districts in the city, according to voting patterns.

In the European election in June, the AfD came in first in Marzahn-Hellersdorf, receiving 25.3 percent of the vote, more than any other Berlin district. In other areas of the country, the AfD has also done disproportionately well in some areas with large numbers of Russian Germans.

Sergej Henke, an 84-year-old local AfD politician who lives in Marzahn-Hellersdorf and is himself a Russian German, was thrilled with the European election result — and had done his best to bring it about. Henke puts out a local Russian-language newspaper financed by the party — and adorned with the AfD’s check-mark logo — called “Let’s Get to Work, Fellow Countrymen!”

Henke, who authors most of the essays, writes on what he believes to be the dangers of migration from Muslim countries, and rails against the German government’s severing of close relations with the Kremlin following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He also stokes the country’s culture wars, decrying the German government’s supposed acceptance of “70 different genders” and depicting a country in stark decline due to progressive politics.

“Things in Germany are really going very badly indeed,” Henke wrote in one recent essay.

Henke sees his duty as “helping my people, the Russian Germans, understand the country in which they live a little better,” he recently said from the living room of his tidy home.

Henke went on to claim that the AfD has won the support of most Russian speakers in his area, largely, he said, because they did not understand German well enough to read the lies promoted by mainstream news outlets and German public broadcasters.

“They do not become victims of the official propaganda to the extent that the local population does,” Henke said.

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