Wendejugend - Book

During the years of reunification, Eberhard Seidel and Klaus Farin interviewed young people in East Germany and in the immigrant districts of the West, bringing right-wing and left-wing youth together. They wanted to know: What are their fears, what are their hopes? Their answers are surprisingly current. Anyone who wants to understand the success of right-wing populism among today's 40- to 55-year-olds must recall the social climate in which this generation experienced its political socialization between 1989 and 1994.

How do young people in East Germany and Berlin react to the opening of the border, to the disappearance of the GDR, and to the emergence of the new Germany? How do they react to dis-solidarization and to legal and social inequality? What does being German mean to them? And do the German-homogeneous young people of the East manage to get along with the young people of diverse origins in the West?

To find answers to their questions, the authors traveled through the new Germany. They sought out young people at their meeting places. They spoke with them and listened to what they had to say. The conversations were conducted when media and politicians were inciting against refugees, and refugee homes and houses inhabited by Turks were burning nationwide.

The "Wendejugend" (youth of the reunification era) has played a special role in Germany to this day. This generation carried the radicalism of their youth into adulthood. They include the spokespersons of PEGIDA, the members and environment of the National Socialist Underground (NSU), and the age group of today's 40- to 55-year-old East Germans most frequently voted for the AfD in the 2017 federal election, the European election, and the 2019 state elections.

The Authors:

Klaus Farin, born in Gelsenkirchen in 1958, has lived in Berlin-Neukölln since 1980 – thanks to punk. After working as a concert organizer and security, bookseller, and journalist, he is now a freelance author and editor, and constantly on lecture tours. He founded the Archive of Youth Cultures, which he headed from 1998 to 2011, and is now chairman of the Respekt! Foundation.

The volume "Krieg in den Städten" (War in the Cities), co-authored with Eberhard Seidel, became a "modern classic" (Ralph Giordano) of youth social research.

Eberhard Seidel, born in Sommerhausen/Franconia in 1955, has lived in Berlin since 1977. He wrote the standard work on the history of the Döner Kebab in Germany and has also been an expert on right-wing extremism, Islamism, and youth subcultures in his life. Today he is the managing director of Schule ohne Rassismus – Schule mit Courage (School without Racism – School with Courage).