The wolves are coming back. The politics of fear in Eastern Germany
Across Eastern Germany, where political allegiances are shifting to the right, the wolf is increasingly seen as a trespasser and threat to the local way of life. Styled by populist right-wing actors as an ‘invasive species’, the wolf evokes and resonates with anti-immigration sentiments and widespread fears of demographic catastrophe. To many people in Eastern Germany, the immigrant and the wolf are an indistinguishable problem that nobody in power is doing anything about. In this account of Eastern German agitation of wolves and migrants, Eastern German hunters, farmers, rioters and self-appointed 'saviours of the nation', Pates and Leser move beyond stereotypic representations of ‘the East’ and shine a light on the complexities of post-socialist life and losses.