Psychology Today defines self-hatred as “…continual feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and low self-esteem,” adding that people who hate themselves “may constantly compare themselves to others, perceive only the negative” while ignoring the positive, and believing that they will never be good enough.
Tilting Right
In the last few days, the world, and indeed most of Europe and Germany specifically, seems to have been jolted awake and shocked by the landslide win of the right-wing party, AfD, in Saxony-Anhalt, a state in East-central Germany. This win has now stoked tensions and anxieties over what will happen in the upcoming 20th September elections in the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, as well as in Berlin.
There are many reasons why the AfD’s win in Saxony-Anhalt is stirring up deep anxieties amongst Germans and Europeans; perhaps the most significant is the fact that the historic 43.8% of the vote the party received is the highest share of votes ever won by a far-right party in a German state parliament since World War II. Further, the AFD is also known to be notably anti-immigration and deeply skeptical of the country’s membership in the European Union, calling the EU a ‘failure’ and pushing for a return to a purely economic integration body that emphasizes tougher border controls.
While many socio-political tensions are driving the rise of the right-wing movement in Germany, this analysis is an attempt to present the psychosocial and even the emotional aspects that are lesser known and thus completely neglected altogether. This analysis is offered from the perspective of an immigrant who has lived in Germany for nearly three years and has had sufficient time to observe and draw inferences from personal experience.
The Cult of Guilt
The opening paragraph draws on the definition of self-hatred because it is the underlying impulse driving the rise of the right-wing movement in Germany. While the mainstream focuses on, discusses, and blames the resurgence of right-wing extremism on economic anxieties, anti-immigrant sentiment, and mistrust in democratic institutions, viewing them as the standard political drivers, these attitudes trace back to an undercurrent of deeply held collective internalized shame and trauma, as well as a deep-seated identity conflict that underlies the German social fabric.
Following the devastating end of the Second World War, the German post-war identity became anchored in Erinnerungskultur (the culture of remembrance), that is, the collective social responsibility Germans swore to acknowledge and remember Nazi atrocities for the sake of avoiding the patterns that gave rise to the Nazis and the atrocities they left in their wake. Yet even within a nation that seems to generally acknowledge the horrors of the Nazi regime and the devastation of the war, certain groups retained resentment towards the culture of remembrance and have increasingly weaponized it against a moral framework that was designed to ensure the nation does not fall back into old ways.
Many voices, including leading AfD figures, have notoriously attacked the culture of remembrance, with some labeling Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial a “monument of shame,” and others describing the Nazi era as mere “bird droppings,” basically, shit, over Germany’s otherwise great history. These sentiments, as they play out on the global stage, reflect a deeply held belief that frames the culture of remembrance as an unfair “guilt cult” (Schuldkult) imposed from the outside. The extent to which Germans hold this belief is quite unclear, because the culture of silence, also driven by guilt and shame, about the Holocaust is quite prevalent. However, the rise of the far right and the fact that it is the faction within German public space that openly touts this rhetoric implies that the sentiment is more widespread than Germans themselves would care to admit.
Clearly, the AfD has become, and given, an avenue where many Germans who espouse such sentiments can externalize their internalized shame, thereby converting deep-seated national guilt into an aggressive, defensive form of “civic” nationalism and pride. Naturally, this aggressive, defensive form of nationalism and pride needs a target onto which to project its shame, guilt, and overall self-loathing, and so enters the “other.”
Scapegoating the “Other”
It is not a coincidence that the far-right in its rhetoric continually espouses xenophobic attitudes towards outsiders, migrants, and refugees whom it largely blames for its national economic and even security crisis. It was noted that the AfD received its first unprecedented votes shortly following the opening of borders and the inflow of refugees in 2015. The data showed that anti-immigration and anti-Islamic rhetoric drove voters en masse to the polls, where many cast their vote for the AfD. That electoral cycle also saw many voters go to the polls for the first time, which also worked in the AfD’s favor.
Further fueling the rise of right-wing extremism is the East-West Divide, a historic feature of German politics that continues to shape modern political and social dynamics. The rise of right-wing extremism is particularly pronounced in the former East Germany (GDR), where the AfD has repeatedly achieved historic breakthroughs—including its recent victory in the Saxony-Anhalt state election, a regional surge that is deeply tied to a sense of collective relative deprivation.
Following reunification in 1990, many East Germans felt economically and culturally devalued by the West. Compounding issues, including relatively lower wages, fewer leadership roles, and a societal narrative that treated East German history contemptuously, have culminated in an internalized sense of being “second-class citizens.” The AfD has used and stoked the frustrations arising from this perceived lower status in the social hierarchy to gain continuous ground in popularity across East Germany.
In his work on Social Disintegration, Wilhelm Heitmeyer highlights that when a group feels structurally humiliated or lacks self-worth, it often projects that internalized hostility outward, what he calls social devaluation, and defines as the cognitive and social degradation of marginalized out-groups to boost their own status artificially. We see such social devaluation in the “othering” of foreigners, migrants, and refugees, who have become the scapegoats for the alienation many [Eastern] Germans feel within their nation of origin.
This “othering” is also driven by diverging political attitudes among young Germans, with young men shifting much further to the right than young women. The right-wing radicalization among young men is fueled by rigid ideas of dominance, status, and traditional masculinity, even when these ideas have been proven to leave young men with deep internalized frustrations, which the far right then uses to hook young men further into hyper-masculine, authoritarian identities; rinse and repeat.
Similarly, the recruitment and use of young men across Germany is being used to drive hateful ideologies about the “other,” which in this case is an expanded group that includes foreigners, queer people, and generally leftists.
The Undercurrent of Hate
Across all the examples and data presented, hate remains the underlying impulse driving the external behaviors now predominantly associated with the right wing. However, my personal experiences in Germany, particularly within liberal/left circles, have led me to conclude that this hateful impulse is neither confined to nor active only within the right wing. It is an undercurrent that runs through the German social fabric, evident to the discerning eye across all spheres of German society.
As an African (Black), queer refugee who has moved fluidly across spaces within the liberal left, I have encountered that hateful impulse at work, even among people I believe had the best intentions toward me. Yet intentions, even the best, often diverge from the impact of the actions that follow, and actions often reveal what is otherwise unstated or unacknowledged within the actor or a group that acts in specific ways. And so, even within supposedly safe spaces, I have encountered that impulse to alienate and make someone else the “other,” so the person doing the “othering” can retain a positive view of themself. Of course, within liberal/left circles, this impulse is less aggressive than one might experience on the right; however, it remains violent in how it projects onto the other its internal hatred of self, because there are too many seemingly conflicting, fractured pieces of the individual and indeed national identity that are not so easily reconciled.
While many Germans on the liberal left and elsewhere on the political spectrum are right to be alarmed by the growing popularity of the right-wing movement, I believe this moment calls for a deeper reckoning within the German psyche, one that naturally transcends partisan politics. The rise in right-wing popularity is a clear and outward expression of the internalized self-hatred inherent in the German psyche. As history shows, a similar self-hatred fueled the extremist views of Nazi Germany, which were then projected onto the “other” and used as the basis and justification for the atrocities of the Holocaust.
Nearly a century later, it is clear that only a portion of the population took the German oath “never again” to heart, and that within the German psyche, deeply held contempt and discontent remain, and no amount of projection and othering can resolve them. It is right to be concerned that what we are witnessing with the increasing popularity of the right wing might be the stirrings of history about to repeat itself. However, to play the partisan blame game in response, while completely ignoring the undercurrent of self-loathing that runs through this society, is akin to ignoring the elephant in the room, which would only bring this society back down the path it swore “never again” to tread.