But this figure still lies well under half the number identified by the journalists. The World Socialist Web Site has already published detailed articles on the nationalist policies of the SED and the responsibility of the GDR for the alarming emergence of right-wing violence in eastern Germany. There are many reasons to account for the fact that right-wing extremism has found conditions favourable for its growth in eastern Germany. But it is by no means the case that all these explanations relate to the past. Actually, the answer is obvious.
Official unemployment is almost twice as high in eastern Germany as in the west.
In many industrial centres of the former GDR, one in every four people is unemployed, and this is the case even though a large part of the population capable of work has already moved out of these areas. The situation is utterly hopeless as far as young people are concerned. Apart from the problem of unemployment, impoverished municipal councils are implementing cost-cutting programmes involving the closure of more leisure facilities, public libraries and youth centres. His statements may have been basically correct, but it was considered that by being so brutally frank he would deter potential investment in eastern Germany. Such arguments merely aim at mollifying criticism.