Yep, history might have turned out quite differently if Schabowski had refrained from answering with what was just his supposition.

Not too differently. East Germany was a goner at that point in history.

Its days were numbered -- but the system could have easily come crashing down very violently, or remained intact but with a massive crackdown (in fact the party leadership was making explicit plans or the latter of these -- "Day X", as they referred that eventuality -- while a "Chinese Solution" was a tacitly acknowledged outcome as well). And then plodded along for another 10 years or so. That's why the events as they unfolded were surprising.

In hindsight, considering the modern rise of the AfD in German politics, and various other oddities now and that will arise in the future, perhaps a gradual wind down transition would have been better.

The lack of a Deng Xiaoping equivalent figure in Germany meant that the old hardline party core, and the favourable to Russia fraction of the population, were never mollified. It was a sharp and abrupt transition for them.

AfD is not a specifically East German or DDR-nostalgic faction though, but a traditional European fascist party, such as exists elsewhere?

There's several dozen, recent, news stories that pop up on Google when searching 'AfD East Germany'. Such as:

https://unherd.com/thepost/afd-support-surges-in-east-german... https://www.politico.eu/article/german-election-far-right-af... https://www.dw.com/en/why-young-eastern-german-voters-suppor...

etc...

If your genuinely unaware of this phenomena, then I suggest to do some reading.

AfD support is definitely stronger in the East, but it is not exclusively an Eastern party, and (unfortunately) has very significant representation in the West as well -- and in fact more supporters in the West than in the East (though percentage-wise the support in the East is much stronger).

It's also not a "nostalgia", or regional grievance party in any meaningful sense.

In other words, observations in the parent message that you are vociferously attacking ... are basically valid.

If you're genuinely unaware of these facts, I would suggest you attempt to inform yourself at a level beyond that of a few casual keyword searches.

Unfortunately, in the message I was responding to, you were (1) accusing another user of gross ignorance, while (2) in regard to the subject matter, demonstrating extremely superficial (basically inadequate) knowledge of you were talking about.

So you were provided with a necessary correction. To be frank, I'm not sure what other kind of response you were expecting.

> To be frank, I'm not sure what other kind of response you were expecting.

One that follows all the HN rules and guidelines.

The majority of passing readers disagree with the alleged reading considering that they have not saw fit to downvote my previous comments.

So I think it's fair to say this is mostly, or entirely, in your own imagination.

To put it in a different way:

Imputing intentions to another HN user can at best cause an account's legitimacy, credibility, veracity, etc., to remain the same.

It's not possible for it to be boosted.

And given the already moderately suspicious nature of a pseudonymous 69 day old account with so much karma, it's far more likely to reduce it.

East Germany has continued being economically weaker than the West, which would make them more prone to more radical ideologies in the absence of the prior far-left one. If anything, a historical gradualist Deng Xiaoping figure would mean acclimation and full development towards a finding a self-sufficient niche in a globalized market economy, not a wind down from hardline pro-Russian party apparatuses (who apparently were responsible for a post-unification far-right party?). Many dissatisfied East German youth would support the Euroscepticism of the AfD because they haven't experienced the full promises of prosperity from the collapse of the DDR and the victory of the West-led order.

East Germany was not sustainable without Soviet Union. That strip of land in the middle of Europe with barely 16 million people isn't quite China.

But yes it certainly was surprising, without the benefit of hindsight now.

Hardly any state in Europe can afford full self-sufficiency in isolation without enormous suffering.

North Korea (with more population than DDR) survived Soviet collapse but just barely, losing hundreds of thousands in a protracted famine, until landing on client relationship with China. Not a realistic scenario for East Germany.