It was in the summer of 2004 that I stopped understanding my own people. I was standing on a sweltering market square in Aschersleben, the town where I was born, picturesquely situated on the northern edge of the Harz mountains. A large crowd of angry people had gathered in front of a stage to protest about the welfare reforms (or, as many saw them, welfare cuts) introduced by the Social Democratic-Green coalition government under chancellor Gerhard Schröder. They chanted “We are the people!”, waved handpainted placards and seemed utterly beside themselves.

I had gone to secondary school nearby, volunteered at the local hospital and interned at the local newspaper: I knew this place. And yet I found myself bewildered. What, exactly, did these deeply aggrieved people want – standing on a freshly renovated, almost idyllic market square? Weren’t things going reasonably well for them? Where did this burning resentment toward the west come from? Wasn’t the east-west divide supposed to be disappearing by now?

More than two decades later, similar questions can once again be asked.

Eastern Germany is facing a blue wave – or rather, a blue flood. In the state election in Saxony-Anhalt on 6 September, the far right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), whose party colour is blue, is almost certain to emerge as the largest party. Opinion polls consistently place the AfD above 40%, while the governing Christian Democrats (CDU) trail on around 23%. The Left party, once dominant in the east, has fallen to just 13%, while the Social Democrats (SPD) are struggling to clear the 5% electoral threshold.

Should only three or four parties enter parliament, the way would be open for Germany’s first-ever state government led solely by the AfD. The established parties would find themselves stranded on the other side of the........

© The Guardian