Discourse and Identity in East Germany: Divergent Narratives of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

This article examines how anti-establishment parties contest Germany’s Zeitenwende. It codes 184 excerpts from Bundestag debates during the twentieth legislative term (2022−2024) and reads them alongside survey evidence on eastern German political culture. Drawing on discursive institutionalism, Feldman’s value-based identity theory, and ideational power, it finds that mainstream parties justify support for Ukraine through moral obligation, deterrence, and European solidarity, whereas the AfD, the Left, and BSW mobilize pacifism, economic victimhood, fear of escalation, and accommodation of Russia. Parliamentary actors thereby keep East German identity anchors politically salient, normalizing alternatives to the national consensus.