Unlike the Western Gastarbeiter, the GDR labor migrants were recruited later (the 1980s), fewer (no more than 200,000), from other countries (Vietnam, Mozambique, Poland), objects of secret service surveillance (by the Stasi), and portrayed not as labor migrants, but recipients of “brotherly” socialist solidarity. Yet the motivation for recruiting them (labor shortages) and their experience of living among Germans were similar: segregated from the general population; objects of paternalism, exoticization, hypersexualization, dehumanization, racist violence; and enticed to leave with – modest – financial bonuses when no longer needed (1983 in Western, 1990 in Eastern Germany). What was fundamentally different was that the GDR portrayed itself as an anti-racist internationalist society; that the countries of origin of the labor migrants deducted a large portion of their earnings and never returned it when the “contract workers” (Vertragsarbeiter) were forced out after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall; and that, consequently, the deported labor migrants often ended up living in poverty at the margins of their societies rather than reaping the benefits of their hard work in the GDR.

Beginning with a look at the January 6 riots at the US Capitol, and concluding with neo-Nazi rallies in support of "white free speech" in Charlottesville, VA, and earlier in Skokie, IL, we discusses how groups are weaponizing free speech to suppress the speech of others.

This chapter discusses extremist side-switchers to the extreme of the far-right ideological spectrum, including neo-Nazism, white supremacism, fascism, and more fluid online extreme-right milieus on platforms such as IronMarch or Discord. Case studies and personal transition narratives for Benito Mussolini, Horst Mahler, Iris Niemeyer, and Julian Fritsch (aka the neo-Nazi musician MakssDamage) form the core of the chapter. Furthermore, an in-depth exploration of extreme-right online milieus and virtual discussions among their members about integrating former left-wing extremists is used to complement the case studies and deliver insights into virtual traces of extremist side-switching. For most defectors in this category, anti-Semitism, nationalism, and far-right conspiracy theories are key features of their side-switching narratives from the far left to the far right. The extreme right appears to be surprisingly open to integrating defectors from the far left, as can be seen in the discussions in online milieus about this issue.