But it's more than just a backlash against communism. The communists, especially the East Germans, had as their official propaganda that their country was completely "socialist," and that they had completely eradicated Nazism from their territory. All neo-Nazis were in West Germany, according to the official East German government line, and they therefore had no need to pursue something that was no longer there. So, after the wall fell, all the repressed sentiments of the radical right burst out like a shaken soda bottle that finally got its cap removed. West Germany had taught its children about the Nazis in its schools for decades. My two girls learned about the Nazis in history class, and knew why their German grandfather had his leg blown off at age 18, and why that was NOT something to be proud of.
During the communist era, Eastern European countries used to use "contract" labor from "brother" countries like Vietnam and Angola. This was little more than slave labor by another name. The foreigners weren't even under the pretense of being integrated, lived in ghettos, were treated worse than house pets. When the wall fell, their home countries weren't exactly eager to take back tens of thousands of unemployed men, so the communities of the unwanted did what so often happens in such situations--they looked inward, and to many, that meant youth gangs and organized crime. To many, it was their only perceived means of survival. Predictably, as these got the biggest headlines, it fueled anti-foreigner sentiment on the right which now had free rein to express itself. Add this to mass unemployment in areas that used to be "socialist," and now had unskilled members of the workforce competing for scarce jobs with the suddenly stranded foreigners willing to work for less than subsistence wages. The resentment was as pre-programmed as if there had been a blueprint that was being meticulously followed.
But please don't call the reactionaries "conservative." They are control freaks out to do other people harm. There is nothing conservative about them. The Eastern European far right are as radical as any so-called "leftist" group with the same tactics and fanaticism.
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