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.