By Guillermo Alvarado

As is already known, in the recent elections for the European Parliament there was a notable increase in votes in favor of neo-fascist parties that, without reaching the majority, obtained a good number of deputies in that legislative body of the integration mechanism of the Old Continent. 

A couple of decades ago, no one would have imagined that such a thing could happen in a territory that knew first-hand the horrors of World War II, started by the Nazi regime headed by Adolf Hitler and his clique of fanatics.

But what is striking is that this advance of the most retrograde forces, which advocate racism, hatred of everything that is different, ultranationalism and fierce xenophobia, has occurred precisely in Germany, the cradle of the Third Reich.

But that's not all, because it happens that the far-right group Alternative for Germany obtained most of its votes precisely in the east of that European country where, as many will remember, the Democratic Republic of Germany, GDR, existed until its dissolution. of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.

For many it will seem contradictory that a former area declared socialist until 35 years ago is now flourishing the weeds of neo-fascism, but the truth is that this painful phenomenon is not entirely inexplicable.

I remember that in a conversation with the writer Christiane Barckhausen-Canale on the occasion of the presentation of her book Tina Modoti, truth and legend, she told me that the reputed German reunification never really existed and what there was was rather an occupation political and economic.

For example, all the factories that existed in the GDR were dismantled and their workers fired and in their place a few consortia from the Federal Republic, that is, West Germany, were installed with their own workers, technicians, specialists and managers.

“Suddenly we became the European third world,” said the writer, alluding to the unemployment, poverty and marginalization derived from that fact.

In 35 years, many of these gaps have not been closed. For example, in the west salaries are still better than in the east for jobs of equal demand.

We must never forget that Adolf Hitler emerged in the midst of the great German economic crisis after World War I, when poverty plagued the population of that country. Nor should we lose sight of the fact that the political group he founded was called the National Socialist Party of the German Workers.  Be careful with history.