(Re)telling far-right violence: The literary geography of East German coming-of-age novels

Abstract

This paper proposes a new perspective on the geographies of the far right by focussing on literary geographies. We have conducted a geographical reading of three novels dealing with the spatial patterns of far-right violence. These books are considered part of an ongoing public debate about the ubiquity and normality of far-right violence in the early 1990s in East Germany. The analysed narratives explore this experience against the background of a fundamental societal transformation and adolescence. Drawing on examples from these books, we propose a three-dimensional literary geography of far-right violence represented within them: Firstly, the everyday geographies of far-right violence in East German cities and towns; secondly, the perceived absence of the police force and other state institutions; and thirdly, the unfolding of this in uneven geographies, in which Berlin takes a central role. This novel approach extends the focus of existing work on the geographies of the far right through adding in a perspective from its literary representations. These representations, on the one hand, shed light on the subjective experiences of far-right violence, and, on the other hand, we postulate that this literary geography speaks to contemporary far-right geographies, voicing an oppositional stand through cultural production, given the widespread reception of these books.

Introduction

‘The tweets led to the post-reunification period, they led to car parks, to open-air swimming pools, to schoolyards. They told of muggings in public toilets, of gas guns at temples, of adrenaline and fear of death’. ¹ This is how German journalist Christian Bangel sums up the debate associated with the hashtag Baseballschlägerjahre (translated as ‘years of the baseball bat’ ² ) on the platform Twitter (now known as X). This hashtag is these days synonymous with a public debate on far-right violence in the (early) 1990s in East Germany. Far-right violence is denoted here as verbal and physiological abuse motivated by far-right ideologies, including white supremacy, racism, and social Darwinism, along with hatred for Sinti and Roma and towards political opponents. This violence manifested through physical and symbolic appropriations of space – rendering it part of far-right geographies. These geographies have been the issue of many novels that have shed light on events that have largely been left out of the official history of German reunification. For many years, remembering these moments (and their present continuity) remained the field of anti-fascist activists. The Baseballschlägerjahre novels, as well as their broad reception gaining media coverage, and being turned into theatre plays and movies, were able to attract public attention to this part of East German history.

We selected three such novels from a much larger body of work. The selected works differ in tone and local setting, however, far-right violence is a fundamental component of each book’s narrative and they are narrated through a post-reunification prism. The latter denotes a societal understanding of far-right violence, rather than as individualised one, as we will show in the analysis. We understand these novels as part of a recently emerging public debate around witnessing the far right in East Germany. They are testimonies of violent encounters with the far right, the disorientation of a post-socialist society, and of anti-fascist self-defence. In this sense, ‘literary texts are no substitute for sociological studies, but they can be read as contributions to reflections on individual as well as social and political processes’. ³ While there is a longstanding tradition of narrating far-right violence in German literature, not that much attention has been paid to ‘non-state far-right terror, racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic and social Darwinist hate crimes after 1945’. ⁴

Against this background, we aim to elaborate the literary geographical dimension of far-right violence in East Germany. We argue that this prompts a more profound engagement with the impact of violence in contemporary debates on far-right geographies. While there is an ongoing engagement with hate crimes and violence under the headers of racism and islamophobia, it is often considered secondarily in work on the geographies of the far right.

For this purpose, we have engaged with a literary geography of far-right violence to explore the links between contemporary debates on the geographies of the far right and the representation of far-right violence in the novels we selected. These novels include, first, Als ich mit Hitler Schnapskirschen aß [When I ate schnapps crisps with Hitler] by Manja Präkels, ⁵ a narrative in the first person that recounts experiences of far-right hegemony and violence in a small town in the federal state of Brandenburg. Secondly, we chose 89/90 by Peter Richter, ⁶ another first-person narrative that dwells on the rise of the far right and anti-fascist counter strategies in the city of Dresden. Finally, we look at Kinder von Hoy [Children of Hoy] by Grit Lemke, ⁷ a multi-perspective novel set in the former socialist model town of Hoyerswerda. ⁸ We propose that the representations of far-right violence in all three novels portray a literary geography entailing three dimensions. First, they describe the normality and ubiquity of a far-right presence accompanied by a high level of far-right violence in public spaces. We identify this phenomenon as the everydayness of far-right violence. Second, they tell of the perceived absence of state institutions. Third, while far-right violence is portrayed in a generally normalised manner, at the same time, it unfolds in uneven geographies pooling and concentrating in some regions.

The far right has been analysed from various perspectives in geography. ⁹ However, so far little attention has been paid to the far right in the context of literary geographies. Literary geographies can contribute valuable insights into the affective dimension of experiencing far-right violence, the literary representations of spatialised forms of violence, and the relationship between cultural discourses and contemporary political geographies. By affective dimension, we mean the emotional and embodied dynamics and atmospheres through which the narrators describe their violent encounters with the far right.

Thus, we propose using literary representations of far-right geographies as a set of empirical data, offering a new approach to the geographies of the far right, a more nuanced engagement with affect, and an increased sensibility to cultural representations of political geographies. The books we selected are set in East Germany in the 1990s and early 2000s, a specific case of far-right violence, which situates and limits our analysis, but nevertheless allows an exploration of the epistemic potential of literary representations.

Our paper proceeds as follows. First, we situate our argument within the literature on the far right before introducing literary geographies as our approach for analysing the selected novels. We then provide a brief overview of the East German coming-of-age literature before going into a more detailed analysis of the three dimensions of the literary geography of far-right violence. After a discussion of our empirical findings, we end by proposing literary geographies as a useful approach for understanding the impact of far-right violence on daily life, the role of state institutions, and relevant spatial patterns.

The geographies of the far right

The far right has become an increasingly prominent subject of human geography in recent years. In what follows, we provide a brief overview of the main issues in the debate on the geographies of the far right before turning to explore some specifics of the far right in East Germany.

The rise of the far right and its spatial expression

The global rise of authoritarianism, the success of far-right parties at the ballots, and the increase in hostility towards inclusion, equality, and other core democratic values have been met with growing scrutiny by the academic community. Debates have arisen within human geography, and in related disciplines, that often focus on how to explain far-right attitudes and the endorsement of far-right politics, through which spatial conceptualisations the far right can be analysed and what ethical and political considerations are necessary implications of such research. Far-right parties have been understood as increasingly connected to the political mainstream. ¹⁰ Moreover, most geographers have adopted an understanding of the far right as regressive and anti-democratic, leaning on ideologies like racism, traditional gender roles, anti-LGBTIQ*, and nationalism. We share the understanding of the far right as a broader societal dynamic rather than a phenomenon restricted to the ‘fringe’. ¹¹ Following this understanding, the far right does not come from ‘somewhere else’, but its beliefs and rationalities were already present within society.

Many authors seeking to understand the reasons for the recent success of the far right often focus on electoral patterns. ¹² Authors variously cite economic factors such as austerity and deprivation as reasons for the increased approval of different forms of authoritarian and populist politics. Most prominently, Rodríguez-Pose ¹³ has proposed Brexit as the ‘revenge’ of populations from places that face both economic decline and a lack of political representation: ‘They are voting down or threatening to vote down a system they perceive has quelled their potential’. ¹⁴ Norris and Inglehart ¹⁵ relate the first election of Trump and Brexit to the cultural backlash of once dominant social groups against more progressive changes. Similar analysis can be found in the work of Urso et al. ¹⁶ on Italy, and of Hannemann et al. ¹⁷ on Germany. Stroppe ¹⁸ has drawn attention to the special role of public services in this constellation. Based on examples from Sweden, Mehic ¹⁹ considers the impact of increasing migration, pointing out links between economic deprivation, small population heterogeneity, and the electoral success of the far right.

Formations of urbanity and rurality are another important aspect of geographical research on the far right. For example, Domann ²⁰ explores the impact of discourses concerning rurality in far-right politics in Germany, outlining how ‘local AfD chapters make use of a certain image of rurality not simply to mediate the party’s nature-glorifying and fossil-fascist ideological elements but to actually make them applicable to concrete local settings’. ²¹ Furthermore, Varco ²² and Benoist et al. ²³ look at far-right political ecologies. Pietiläinen and Kellokumpu ²⁴ recently published a special issue on environmentalism of the far right.

In contrast, Mullis ²⁵ analyses the rise of the far right in the global city of Frankfurt under urban conditions, arguing recently ²⁶ in favour of ‘peripheralization’ as concept to approach the spatialities of the far right. Rossi ²⁷ focusses on the urban roots of right-wing populism in Italy. The work of Closs Stephens, ²⁸ Anderson and Secor, ²⁹ and Luger ³⁰ have brought the affective politics of the far right to the forefront of scientific scrutiny: ‘offering three propositions – that right-wing populism is available, excessive, and optimistic’. ³¹

Literary geographies of far-right violence can provide insights into the affective dimension of far-right violence and help to centre the experiences of those affected by it, providing links to the relevant debates on racism, islamophobia, and anti-LGBTIQ* hate in geography in general. ³² However, we cannot claim to represent these positions here, as the selected narratives have been written by white authors. Nevertheless, we hope that this engagement with literary representations of far-right violence might help to strengthen the conversations between research on the far right and the aforementioned debates. Finally, we are clear that our understanding and analysis is limited by the historic and regional specifics of our research subject. Thus, the following provides further details on the far right in East Germany in the early 1990s.

Legacies of transformations: the 1990s in East Germany

Different to countries like France, Sweden, and the US, the development of the far right in East Germany is embedded within the specific conditions of a society in transformation, however, not determined by it. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the German reunification one year later, the inhabitants of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), now East Germany, experienced a fundamental social and economic crisis. ³³ This meant not only a massive loss of employment, but a whole system of beliefs, ideologies, and identities was dismantled almost overnight in the early 1990s. The cultural, political, and economic shift from a socialist state and planned economy to a democratic capitalist order caused a deep disruption, touching on nearly every aspect of life ³⁴ – though individual experiences and reactions might have differed. State institutions, including the police, faced a deep crisis of legitimacy and many young, well-educated people left for ‘the West’, causing material and affective forms of deprivation ³⁵ and transforming into feelings of ‘regional embitterment’ over the years. ³⁶ However, since the 1990s, other (global) economic and political dynamics, foremost the acceleration of neoliberalism, austerity, and authoritarianism, have contributed and shaped regional decline, political alienation, and out-migration in East Germany. ³⁷ For example, Reichle ³⁸ has looked at authoritarian tendencies under East German urban neoliberalism, highlighting the role of ‘successive disinvestment, stigmatization, revalorization and financialization of rental housing’ ³⁹ in the rise of the far right. Tracing these dynamics in the town of Hoyerswerda (Saxony), Felix Ringel ⁴⁰ presents an ethnography of shrinkage, abandonment, and emotional disaffection.

Returning back to the issue of the far right in East Germany, there are no official records of far-right hate crimes in the GDR, however, there are records of attacks on migrant workers and punks in the 1980s. ⁴¹ The GDR, as a self-declared ‘anti-fascist-state’, faced an irreconcilable ideological contradiction when it comes to addressing fascist violence and, thus relabelled the crimes as ‘youth violence’ and the far-right offenders as ‘rowdies’. ⁴²

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, existing far-right structures coalesced with the societal transformation and decline, as well as with far-right ‘activism’ from West Germany. ⁴³ As a result, attacks on migrant homes, homicides and murders, assaults on non-white and homeless people, and aggression towards alternative or anti-fascist youths became everyday occurrences in the early 1990s. ⁴⁴ Peaking in 1992, this marked the deadliest period of far-right violence in Germany after 1945. ⁴⁵ During this time, a widespread far-right youth culture emerged that is reflected in the analysed novels. Those who were not far-right often automatically became victims of verbal and physical attacks, ⁴⁶ while neo-Nazis appropriated public spaces, constituting a constant threat that disrupted everyday life for migrants, non-far-right youths, etc. This appropriation is important for three reasons: First, it relates to the neo-Nazi strategy of ‘nationally liberated zones’ (National befreite Zonen) where actors of the far right aim to gain the de facto monopoly of violence in a given territory; second, it illustrates the affective geography of the far right, symbolising empowerment for the far right and positive self-identification through collective acts of violence defence; and third, it relates to the exclusion of the ‘other’, meaning anyone who did not align with them. How far-right violence affected the everyday lives of non-far-right youths, how they navigated, avoided, and sometimes had to defend themselves, constitutes a fundamental element of the narratives analysed in this paper. This will be outlined after a brief explanation of literary geographies.

Bearing witness: approaching literary geographies

Since the early 2000s, the experience of the profound transformation that followed the end of the GDR has taken literary form. ⁴⁷ Within the last few years, Baseballschlägerjahre novels have multiplied, increasingly focussing on far-right violence. We chose three such novels with different settings, narrative tones, and narrator positionalities in which encounters with neo-Nazis serve as formative moments for their literary characters. Before going into detail, we first introduce literary geographies as our methodological approach.

Literary geographies as methodology

Literary geography has long been understood in terms of the construction of geographical knowledge through (fictional) texts, ⁴⁸ and as connecting ‘literary studies and academic geography’. ⁴⁹ Thus, the production of knowledge about a fictional world via descriptions of landscape, spatial relations, and object placements, but also the affective and emotional relations of fictional characters to these surroundings – as Ryan et al. argue – ‘is an essential part of the mental act of narrative world (re)construction, since the imagination can only picture objects that present spatial extension’. ⁵⁰

Far more than simply the background of a text, space can be ‘a focus of attention, a bearer of symbolic meaning, an object of emotional investment, a means of strategic planning, a principle of organisation, and even a supporting medium’. Fictional ⁵¹ narratives, like novels, link multiple spaces, they are a ‘hybrid of local, national, and international spaces’ ⁵² that give meaning to a narrative, make it comprehensible to the reader and ‘give meaning to its relationship of power and knowledge’. ⁵³ In other words, ‘literary texts represent social spaces, but social spaces shape literary forms’. ⁵⁴ Geographers have, therefore, analysed how literature shapes the space of cities, ⁵⁵ represents regional identities, ⁵⁶ and imaginations of the nation ⁵⁷ and how literature allows a more-than-human understanding of the world. ⁵⁸ In addition, literary geographies offer insights into the embodied and perceived experience of narrators and/or characters, rendering them multidimensional, affective beings, allowing the reader to relate to the characters and situations, as shown by Patricia Noxolo’s ⁵⁹ work on Brian Chikwava’s Harare North. Hence, ‘in the emotional relation, spatial objects matter for what experiences they afford, for what aesthetic feelings they inspire, and for what memories they bring to mind’. ⁶⁰ Moreover, this also implicates the text itself as an emergent geographical event, ⁶¹ relating the ‘space of the story and the space in which the story happens in readings’. ⁶² Yet any work on literary geographies has ‘to go beyond the literary analysis of geographical themes or the geographical analysis of literary texts’. ⁶³

We consider the geographies of publishing, distribution, and reception of literature to all be relevant. Nevertheless, our focus remains on the narrative settings within selected novels and how far-right violence is recounted therein. While our analysis cannot be done without taking the authors’ biographies and the historical context of the narratives into consideration, we take a mainly text-oriented approach to the material. Following Hones, we approached our examples through a ‘close reading’, ‘with fictional setting defined as the locations in which the action takes place’. ⁶⁴ This signifies a detailed and critical engagement with the text itself, ⁶⁵ interpreting the literary devices through which narrators convey their experiences to the reader, how emotion and affect become attached to these narratives, and which geographies develop relevance for the story and how.

We analysed the novels with a focus on which discourses, emotions, practices, and spatial patterns of far-right-violence were represented in the narrative. We considered those to be testimonies that might match or contradict what we already consider to be known about the geographies of the far right. ⁶⁶ This approach provides insights into very personal and affective geographies of the far right, as well as on the different ways the presence of the far right has been made to make sense through cultural productions, and how these testimonies become cultural phenomena that articulate a different history of German reunification. The next section provides information on the content and context of our examples.

Testimonies of a violent past: post-GDR narratives of adolescence

As mentioned in the introduction, our selected novels represent a much larger genre-like collection of works that address the specifics of adolescence in East Germany. ⁶⁷ These books are mostly semi-autobiographical and can be considered counter-hegemonic narratives, stressing the disparities between the promise of ‘blooming landscapes’ made by former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, ⁶⁸ and official discourses of a ‘catching-up development’, and the everyday reality in East Germany (see also ‘Legacies of transformations: the 1990s in East Germany’). The books are set against the background of deep economic and social ruptures, urban and regional decline, and personal disorientation. These narratives map the experience of adolescence under such circumstances, and negotiate classic coming-of-age motives such as changing relationships with peers and parents, the loss of childhood innocence, and achieving maturity. Thus, like many contemporary novels about adolescence, they are ‘characterised by a concerted attempt to situate the protagonist in relation to historical contexts [. . .] by which individuals come to understand themselves as having been conditioned’. ⁶⁹ In our case, this includes far-right violence.

From this genre, we chose three novels where far-right violence and different forms of resistance are experienced as formative moments by the characters and narrator(s), all of which are primarily set in the immediate transition period after 1989. While there are different manifestations of the presence of the far right throughout the books, we define violent attacks as the most impactful, direct, and dangerous form of it.

Our first novel is Als ich mit Hitler Schnapskirschen aß by the journalist, musician, and author Manja Präkels. It is a semi-autobiographic novel about her childhood and youth in a small town north of Berlin. The narrator, Mimi, and her friends are constantly confronted by right-wing violence, including an attack by neo-Nazis that leads to the death of a young person from the punk scene. Thus, the narrative deals with personal and collective ways of coping, including escape and counter action, but also with depression and suicide.

Peter Richter, now a journalist at the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, describes the city of Dresden after 1989 in his semi-autobiographical novel, 89/90, our second novel. At this time, the absence of state authorities allowed the establishment of an alternative cultural life that involved bars, concerts, and squats, while at the same time the establishment of a militant neo-Nazi scene was also taking place. He recounts multiple failed or repressed attempts of anti-fascist self-defence, frequently drawing on irony.

Our last novel is Kinder von Hoy by director and author Grit Lemke. This novel describes the development of the medium-sized town of Hoyerswerda and its rapid industrialisation and growth, as well as its sharp decline after 1989. The town was the site of racist pogroms in 1991, when hundreds of neo-Nazi skinheads, together with local citizens, attacked the homes of foreign workers and refugees, leading to an exodus of migrants from the town. ⁷⁰ While both Richter ⁷¹ and Präkels ⁷² speak to the reader through a first-person narrator, giving insights into their personal experience and affective and emotional experiences, Lemke’s ⁷³ novel is written from multiple perspectives, linking a narrative told in the first-person with short non-fiction interviews that provide first-hand experiences. Building on these three novels, the next section outlines the identified three-dimensional literary geography of the novels.

A literary geography of far-right violence in East Germany

As stated earlier, we applied a method of ‘close reading’ to the novels we selected, interpreting and comparing how the narratives rely on spatial representations to relate experiences of far-right violence to the reader. We have outlined the resulting literary geography across three dimensions, supported by examples and illustrative quotations from the novels. Therefore, we first analysed how the hegemony of the far right in the streets was narrated, how it was rendered affectively and how it impacted the narrator’s everyday geographies. Then, we turned to the role of institutions that would normally limit the activities of the far right, most notably the police but also the media, schools, and, to a certain degree, parents. We found all were notably absent from the narratives, thus, focussing on how these institutions instigated spatial renderings of perceived absence to which the narrators related through traumatic experiences of helplessness and abandonment, but also resistance. For the third dimension, we looked at the uneven geographies of far-right violence. While in all the narratives the far right features as part of the narrators’ daily lives, there are nevertheless differences between the narrative settings. Moreover, we found that Berlin, as a traditional stronghold of the radical left, had a special role to play in these spatial patterns.

Normal and everywhere: everyday geographies of far-right violence

One major narrative feature of all three novels is the description of how everyday geographies were altered through far-right violence. Recently, Luger ⁷⁴ put forward an exploration of the far right’s relation to everyday geographies, especially places of leisure, worship, and fitness. Our analysed narratives place the far right as an everyday occurrence in public spaces and demonstrate the brutal and embodied practices of exclusion people increasingly face. As the far right’s presence became ever more ubiquitous in the months and early years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, so too did potential violent encounters. All three narratives describe instances of limitation, restrictions of movement, and the inaccessibility of certain spaces. The narrators increasingly associated public spaces and individual places of quotidian movement with danger. Thus, these sites were increasingly associated with affects of fear, anger, and resignation.

The first-person narrator of Manja Präkels’ Als ich mit Hitler Schnapskirschen aß, Mimi, describes how being attacked by local thugs or ‘gorillas’, as she calls them, after her childhood friend betrayed her, broke her heart one summer. ⁷⁵ This childhood friend later became leader of the local far-right groups with ties to organised crime. The end of their friendship, a common coming-of-age trope, is an important vehicle to describe how the far right took over the streets of Mimi’s hometown, symbolised by a sudden increase in the number of ‘bald heads’. ⁷⁶ The far-right youths of the Baseballschlägerjahre were heavily influenced aesthetically and culturally by skinhead symbolisms and music. ⁷⁷ Bald heads, combat boots, and bomber jackets became visible markers of how the far right encroached into spaces frequented daily by the adolescent narrators – mostly public spaces, schools, and spaces of leisure such as youth clubs and meeting places. ⁷⁸ This literary geography, thus, provides a testimony about the historical ‘take over’ of many cities, towns, and villages in East Germany by far-right youths. This allows us to address the impact of the aforementioned strategy of ‘nationally liberated zones’, thereby, bringing different and sometimes conflicting affects and experiences into consideration. Präkels ⁷⁹ described how the skinhead leaders of local far-right youth groups became the sex symbols of her generation and Peter Richter’s ⁸⁰ young male antifascist first-person narrator once pondered if dressing as a neo-Nazi would be ‘true punk rock’.

The literary geography, however, also allows us to gain insights into dynamics of limitation and polarisation affecting public spaces and the everyday geographies of the narrators; they are also a testament to the ‘success’ of the far right’s violent strategy and how this affected anyone who did not associate themselves with such world views. Manja Präkels’ ⁸¹ narrator described how she and her friends, members of the punk and goth scene, were repeatedly chased through town, until they disappeared from public spaces and became increasingly confined to private spaces, meeting secretly in their childhood rooms: ‘We learned to sneak over fences and hedges’. ⁸² As far-right violence intensified, the everyday geographies of the narrator became further restricted – escalating in the death of a friend after a neo-Nazi attack, leaving the narrator unable to leave her house. ⁸³

Similar dynamics are described by the narrators of Grit Lemke’s Kinder von Hoy. As far-right violence intensified, the city’s alternative housing and cultural projects came under constant siege. Violence caused public spaces to no longer be accessible, and the narrators became increasingly restricted to private spaces, as violent attacks ‘can happen anywhere in the city now. You stay at home. But they know where you live’. ⁸⁴ The narrators/interviewees also became increasingly isolated: ‘At some point, we stopped meeting altogether. Now everyone is alone with their fear’. ⁸⁵ This literary geography allows us to address the limitation of everyday geographies and accounts for their lack of oppositional practice, it gives insight into the isolating impact of fear, paralyzing countercultural life, and activism, as well as giving free reign to despair, depression, and suicide. ⁸⁶ Therefore, we are able to grasp the affective impact of far-right violence and also gain a more nuanced understanding of the challenges or impossibilities of resisting the far right. While Richter’s ⁸⁷ narrator experienced limitations and restrictions in his everyday geography, he, along with friends and fellow alternative youths, participated in acts of militant self-defence, patrolling their neighbourhood and attacking far-right youths. For example, when they would see them beating up someone in the tram, ‘we enter the tram, blood splatters on the windows’. ⁸⁸ Resistance can, therefore, be understood as reliant on individual experiences and outer conditions, such as the number of local anti-fascist activists and their militance.

Lemke’s ⁸⁹ and Richter’s ⁹⁰ narratives unfold within larger urban agglomerations than Präkels’, ⁹¹ which may account for their illumination of two distinct phenomena associated with this period, elements that are only minor focal points in Präkels’ small-town narrative. Both Lemke ⁹² and Richter ⁹³ describe the limitations of their narrators’ everyday geographies through an ongoing process of spatial and political polarisation and an increasing number of local ‘no-go areas’. Additionally, their narratives put a stronger emphasis on racist violence. Lemke describes the racist pogroms taking place in Hoyerswerda in 1991 and Richter sarcastically recounts migrant workers being attacked by far-right actors during the day and leftists by night: ‘They [migrants] got it during the day, then they were locked away in their hostels and we took over the night shift, so to speak’. ⁹⁴ Thus, this literary geography allows us to consider limitations and restrictions affecting everyday geographies, but also the differences between different locations in terms of forms of violence, spatial patterns, individual affective, and activist reactions. Such activist reactions often included militant self-defence that relied on the fortification of houses ⁹⁵ and violent attacks on neo-Nazis. ⁹⁶ Both became necessary as the police and other state institutions offered little protection against far-right violence. How the perceived absence of the state plays into the literary geography of the far right in all three novels will be shown in the next section.

Helplessness, trauma, and spaces of possibility: where state institutions appear absent

As outlined above, all three novels explore how far-right youths appropriated public spaces and increasingly exercised a monopoly on violence. However, this practice inevitably intersected with the state’s monopoly on violence and raised questions about why it was not enforced. To understand this dynamic, it is important to situate the literary geography of far-right violence discussed in this paper within the narratives’ historical contexts.

All three novels reflect a temporal shift in far-right violence, with its most unrestrained phase occurring in the early years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. During this period, two key phenomena facilitated the far right’s appropriation of public spaces. First, in the early years, the police often appeared overwhelmed by far-right violence and did little to contain it. ⁹⁷ Second, initial anti-fascist opposition was often precarious and required self-defence, which became more organised in the years to come. ⁹⁸

Recognising these ‘blank spaces’ is crucial to understand the extent of real and perceived isolation and the traumatic effects the protagonists of the novels and many other experienced during this time. Additionally, activist publications from this time point to a climate of general tolerance towards social Darwinist and racist, rather than this being a phenomenon of the ‘fringes’ of society. ⁹⁹ Präkels ¹⁰⁰ hinted at this, when listing far-right attacks and the lack of resulting police action to investigate them as they, instead investigated a series of robberies blamed on Roma people. Lemke’s interviews ¹⁰¹ recall instances where police officers passed personal information about complainants to perpetrators or failed to investigate arson cases. These testimonies also highlight the prevalence of victim-blaming, further exacerbating the trauma caused by far-right violence. ¹⁰² Richter ¹⁰³ framed the police’s role in tolerating far-right violence as follows: ‘There was no more police. Of course, there still was, but they didn’t do anything, especially not against people with baseball bats. The baseball bats had replaced the police [. . .]. The monopoly on violence had been transferred to each individual. It was now in our hands’.

This form of absence or selective presence of state institutions was addressed through different strategies of self-defence in all three novels – hinting at a specific historical and local configuration of anti-fascist militance. ¹⁰⁴ Initially, many of these strategies where protective measures featured in all three novels such as having lookouts and security for concerts and parties, and monitoring local far-right structures, but also the fortification of private spaces. After an attack by neo-Nazis, Mimi’s friends ‘put iron bars in the stairwell and barricaded the door’. ¹⁰⁵ Similar fortifications were described by Peter Richter, ¹⁰⁶ as the narrator recounted how a group of neo-Nazis attacked a squat, using a welding machine to overcome barriers, bars, and barbed wire that had been installed by the inhabitants to fight them off. Lemke ¹⁰⁷ described the installation of makeshift barricades during a far-right attack: ‘We feverishly close the front door. How long would it hold? [. . .] We push the hall cupboard in front of the front door’. However, this is not a single occurrence: ‘We always had to close the shutters in the evening and barricade the house [. . .] Some of us did real martial arts. [. . .] We took up arms. I always had a blank-firing gun in my jacket’. ¹⁰⁸ Peter Richter ¹⁰⁹ also described militant action as (male) anti-fascists staged attacks on members of the far right, damaging their cars and clubs, and instilling practices such as patrolling and defending ‘their part of the city’ violently. For example, they ‘went to the prefabricated housing district and tore up the youth club where a far-right singer-songwriter from West Germany, was to perform the next day’. ¹¹⁰ Thus, militant action took over where the police were absent, attempting to prevent neo-Nazi groups from entering parts of the city. Resistance, in this sense, was practical as it relied on direct action, contesting the neo-Nazis’ spaces but also securing alternative spaces. In both, Präkels’ and Lemke’s narratives, these constructs are fragile and ultimately fail. In Kinder von Hoy, the last remaining alternative club was attacked by neo-Nazis, resulting in the death of one alternative youth. ¹¹¹ In Als ich mit Hitler Schnapskirschen aß, ¹¹² an alternative cultural festival was attacked by the local neo-Nazis and soon, the narrator said, ‘the police force is about to leave. You only have twenty minutes left. Then you’re on your own’. The differences between the narratives is evidence of that uneven geography of far-right violence, which will be discussed in the next section.

Urbanism, rurality, and the uneven geographies of far-right violence

All three novels depict the spatially uneven spread of far-right violence. The narrators recount their experiences of the far-right youth culture’s territorial and symbolic expansion – whether creeping in from the outskirts of town ¹¹³ or transforming the city’s prefabricated housing districts into ‘no-go’ areas, ¹¹⁴ which, in the case of Hoyerswerda, eventually engulfed the entire town. Echoing current debates in human geography, ¹¹⁵ these narratives illustrate how the far right first gained a foothold in the peripheries of Hoyerswerda, Dresden, and a small town in Brandenburg. This literary geography serves as a stark reminder that the far right does not remain confined to an imagined spatial or societal fringe – it advances wherever it is not met with fierce resistance. Direct action and anti-fascist activism have been identified as pivotal mechanisms through which the geographies of far-right violence depicted in these narratives became uneven, thereby, ensuring the security and maintenance of safe spaces and containing far-right violence.

While local antifascist or safe spaces were described as precarious, all three narratives refer to Berlin as an alternative territoriality, a site of longing and refuge, ¹¹⁶ and as home to a large militant anti-fascist scene. ¹¹⁷ However, Berlin did not only serve as safe space and counter imaginary, but directly interacted with local geographies of far-right violence. Especially in Hoyerswerda and Dresden, anti-fascist activists from Berlin attempted to appear as mentors, distributing anti-fascist publications, as well as seeking to implement militant and political strategies. ¹¹⁸ The narrators present this as a mixed blessing at best, and dangerously ignorant at its worst. Lemke’s ¹¹⁹ narrative and interviews, set in the context of a countercultural space, describes how artists establish connections to Berlin. However, the locals feel ‘over-run when the whole of Antifa marched in from Berlin’. ¹²⁰ They experienced the involvement of ‘outside’ anti-fascist activists, most notable in the aftermath of Hoyerswerda’s racist pogrom, as fuelling the escalation of far-right violence. They depicted the alienation between the black bloc – masked antifascist activists, dressed in black – and locals, concerning the use of violence, destruction of public property, and engagement with non-activists. Any initial relief caused by outside antifascist support was soon replaced by dread, as, ‘the cars from Berlin are long gone. We’re still here. And the skinheads’. ¹²¹ For Richter’s narrator, the martial demeanour of Berlin’s antifascists serves as a more positive foil for identification. ¹²² However, he describes a similar dynamic as Lemke: with the anti-fascists from Berlin: ‘[. . .] the streets belong to us. But when the battered VW buses with Berlin licence plates are back on the motorway, the right-wingers arrive in their Kadetts and they retaliate by ‘beating up anyone who passes by, as if to tell us, “This isn’t Kreuzberg after all, even if you’d like it to be”’. ¹²³ However, Berlin is also entangled in an uneven geography of far-right violence and not an anti-fascist island, as both Präkels’ ¹²⁴ and Richter’s ¹²⁵ narrators encounter neo-Nazis in the city. The three novels relate to Berlin through complex affective relations.

Berlin also prevails as a place of longing, offering a final refuge to Mimi, who states at the end of the narrative: ‘When I reached Berlin Alexanderplatz, there was nothing left of it [tension]. With joy, I threw myself into the turmoil, which took me in protectively, as if I already belonged to it’. ¹²⁶ Several of Lemke’s ¹²⁷ interview partners similarly frame Berlin as a place of refuge. The literary geography is, thus, not only a testament to the violent experiences, limitations, and (counter)actions of this time, but also provides insights into their spatial patterns. In the following section, we briefly summarise the analytical value of our findings.

Retelling the 1990s: a literary perspective on the geographies of the far right

Our reading of the three novels proposes a three-dimensional literary geography that might deepen our understanding of the geography of the far right. First, we see that dynamic far-right violence unfolded within everyday geographies. We have outlined how the narrators experienced their surroundings as increasingly unsafe, resulting in a limitation of their movement, isolation, and existential angst. Second, this dynamic would not have been possible if it wasn’t for the apparent absence or selective presence of the police and other state institutions. Moreover, it leads to questions of direct action and the involvement of non-state actors in the containment of far-right politics, which has been addressed in the context of anti-fascist geographies. ¹²⁸ Third, far-right violence unfolds in uneven geographies, pooling in some places while also constantly being directed at ‘leftist’ or ‘alternative’ spaces. In our selected narratives, Berlin plays a special role as a symbol of refuge and anti-fascist action, which points to the importance of understanding geographies of the far right and anti-fascist counter action as simultaneously uneven and relational.

Engaging with literary geographies of far-right violence allows a sensitivity to the role of affect, everyday geographies, state institutions, and anti-fascist activism in the debates on the spatialities of the far right. Understanding the narratives from the selected novels and their literary geography as artistic forms of world-making provides a link to the interaction with the readers and the book’s affective co-constitution. ¹²⁹ This connects the literary geography of far-right violence in the novels with the contemporary political geographies of the far right. Our identified literary geography provides illustrations of a past marked by violence, the experience of fear, existential anxiety, loss, and isolation, thereby, letting the fictional setting emerge in ‘the interaction of author, narrative voice, and reader’. ¹³⁰

The narratives describe a sense of being ‘left behind’ or ‘abandoned’ by state institutions, as well as fleeting experiences of empowerment, community, and hope. The selected books provide a glimpse into the destructive capacity of far-right violence, which extends beyond immediate violent encounters. This violence hinders, limits, and mutilates in ways that are both mundane and fundamental.

The importance of constructing coherent narratives to make sense of political violence is, therefore, illustrated. ¹³¹ The books by Präkels, Lemke, and Richter are accounts of survival, as well as coming of age, where the loss of childhood innocence is narrated through the brutality of societal change, and far-right violence. They are also testimonies that survival is not a happy ending, as the characters and narrators account for multiple losses beyond childhood innocence, in particular, Präkels ¹³² and Lemke ¹³³ depict the loss of home, the loss of life through far-right violence and suicide, the loss of trust, and the loss of hope.

We understand these facets of the identified literary geography as practices of artistic worldmaking ¹³⁴ that extend beyond the confines of narratives, constituting a political commentary on the contemporary geographies of the far right. By examining the experiences and consequences of far-right violence, these narratives facilitate empathetic connections to past injustices and promote an activist understanding of memory that includes the anti-fascist activism perspective. The narrative practice that constructs coherent testimonies of the Baseballschlägerjahre can be considered a cultural phenomenon. Consequently, our analysis underscores the significance of discourses that appear to transcend the realm of politics in comprehending political violence, thereby, offering empowerment to former victims and potential victims, necessitating empathy and acknowledgement, and ultimately striving for political measures that impede the recurrence of far-right violence.

In the concluding section, we plea for further consideration of literary geographies in future research.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have argued for a three-dimensional literary geography of far-right violence, which we consider relevant for future research on the far right. As a mediator of public knowledge, literature offers geographical narratives that have political impact. Most obviously, in the case of the books analysed for this paper, by strengthening general sensitivity concerning far-right violence and public acknowledgement of the far-right violence of the 1990s beyond activist circles. We consider the analysed novels relevant as artistic forms of worldmaking, which do not necessarily differentiate between fact and fiction, but open up new empirical insights for cultural geography. These insights include a perspective of the affects and emotions of the victims of far-right violence. The novels point to the role of state institutions and to the unevenness of violence. It is our contention that literature provides a substantial corpus of empirical data, thereby, serving as a valuable resource for researchers engaged in methodological explorations of political violence. This corpus offers insights into the manner in which groups and individuals employ narrative practices to construct and interpret various forms of political violence. Furthermore, it sheds light on the extent to which the study of political geography could draw upon cultural phenomena.

Yet, there are also limitations to a literary geographical reading. Our focus on a selection of novels remains to a certain degree ‘subjective’. Furthermore, it is obvious that the business of publishing favours certain perspectives and excludes others. For example, the corpus of post-GDR novels lacks migrant perspectives and those of homeless persons. Finally, there is the danger that literary, as well as scientific publications, reinforce the stigmatisation of whole cities or regions and neglect the various, less prominent, efforts of anti-fascist initiatives.

However, and to conclude, we hope that future novels from East Germany can contribute to unfolding a literary geography of progressive and emancipatory futures.