It's been a big year for Germany's far-right party, the Alternative for Germany party or AfD.
The AfD has made significant electoral gains, first in the European Parliament election, then at a regional level, becoming the first far-right party to win a German state since the Nazis.
And with a snap federal election now set, the party could make an even bigger mark on German politics.
Far-right parties have entered the mainstream across Europe over the past decade or so, especially in Italy, Austria and France, but never before in Germany.
Like other far-right parties on the continent, the AfD is staunchly nationalist, anti-immigration (particularly anti-Islam) and anti-EU.
But the party is not attracting the same level of support across Germany, with most votes and recent electoral wins for the AfD coming from the formerly communist east of the country.
It's the latest chapter in Germany's east-west divide and one which experts say is years — or even centuries — in the making.
The east-west divide
From 1949–1990, Germany was divided into the German Democratic Republic (or East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (or West Germany).
But James Hawes, the author of The Shortest History of Germany, traces the east-west divide back much further, to the time of the Romans.
"Basically what became West Germany in the future was always an integral part of Western Europe … whereas, until the year 1200, Berlin [in the east] was just a Slavic fishing village with no Germans in it," he tells ABC Radio National's Rear Vision.
He says the eastern and western parts of today's Germany evolved as "entirely different societies".
That difference was highlighted in the 18th and 19th centuries when it was the Kingdom of Prussia, which was centred in the east, and the Germanic states and cities elsewhere.
Hawes says over in the east, Prussia matched a German stereotype of "guys with polished boots, scars on their faces and monocles, goose-stepping around the place, being militaristic".
While western Germany, was "famously called the land of poets and thinkers", he says.
They were, in Hawes' words, the "types of people who'd never menaced anybody".
Then in 1871, the prime minister of Prussia Otto von Bismarck brought together the various kingdoms, principalities, free cities and others to create the German Empire.
The east and the rise of Hitler
In the decades that followed, there remained big differences between the east and the west of this unified Germany.
"Things like the employment [rate], the likelihood of having a company, the likelihood of having a manufacturing [industry], a less-paid job versus a higher-paid job … East Germany already did poorly in those characteristics, even though it did not exist [as a separate country]," says Gonçalo Pina, an associate professor in international economics at the ESCP Business School.
The east had a major impact on German politics and, arguably, some of the biggest events of the 20th century.
In 1932, Hitler's Nazi Party saw great electoral success before Germany slid into a one-party state the following year.
"If you look at the last kind of free election in 1932 ... you can see really clearly on maps, Hitler only got into power because of votes from the east," Hawes says.
"Hitler was getting way over 50 per cent all over the east. In places like Cologne, in Aachen in the far west, he was getting under 20 per cent."
"He could never have made it into power without those massive votes piling up in the east."
Separated into two countries
Hitler's rise to and consolidation of power led to the outbreak of World War II, the deadliest conflict in history.
After Germany's defeat in 1945, historical differences between the east and west were turbocharged when the country was carved into two.
The western part became integrated into the Western World, built on the idea of a liberal democratic order linked to a free economy.
The eastern section became part of the Soviet-aligned Eastern Bloc.
Christina Morina is a professor of history at Bielefeld University and author of A Thousand Departures: The Germans and Their Democracy Since the 1980s.
"In West Germany [there were] free and fair elections, an opposition, a free press. And then you had a socialist experiment in East Germany … with repression and illiberalism and [a lack of] freedom," she says.
For decades, there were no free elections in East Germany.
"It was basically a dictatorship," says Johannes Kiess, the deputy director of the Else Frenkel-Brunswik Institute at the University of Leipzig, who specialises in political mobilisation on the far right.
Dr Kiess says as a result, democracy is "less established in the social fabric of the population there, and that makes it more volatile and more vulnerable to far-right mobilisation".
'Not really a reunification'
By the late 1980s, opposition to the East German government had grown to a fever pitch across the country.
There was "an enormous mobilisation of East Germans on the streets, in the workplaces, taking strike action, forming demonstrations in cities across the country on a weekly basis", says Gareth Dale, a reader in political economics at Brunel University.
Then in 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. And in 1990, Germany was reunified.
But Dr Kiess says that it's more complex than that.
"What happened was not really a reunification, but the East German regions joined the West German state," Dr Kiess says.
There was a mass privatisation of state-owned assets in the east, which was driven by the west. Many companies were slimmed down or liquidated.
The former East Germany went from near-total employment under a communist system to a spike in unemployment.
"[East Germany] wanted the gifts of a free market, capitalist society, and that's what they got. But it also came with the closing down of many factories … Out of [around] 17 million people, 4 to 5 million became unemployed within a couple of years," Dr Kiess says.
Pina adds: "[There] was a lot of economic decay, which was very visible and all happening very quickly. There was an extreme shock to the East German economy."
As a result, the initial jubilance in the east did not last.
"And it was in that sense of disempowerment that some of the troubling trends that we've seen come to the surface more recently began," Dr Dale says.
The gap between east and west
In order to counteract the economic impact of unification on East Germany, West Germany poured billions into the region. But results have been mixed.
Dr Kiess, speaking from the eastern part of Germany, sums up the situation.
"There is still money going into [the] east … particularly in infrastructure, autobahns or motorways that were built," he says.
"But at the same time, we still have a much weaker economic structure. With the big German companies, there's still not one that has its headquarters in [the former] East Germany."
"The bulk of the research, and development [with these companies] … and also the taxes are paid in western Germany."
"Not just income but [also] wealth is much scarcer in the east. And that's something that is not only visible and part of everyday life, but it's also something that affects people's identities."
The rise of the right in the east
While the recent rise of the AfD has seen the far right go mainstream, this type of politics has had a presence in Germany since the end of World War II.
"There has always been support for far-right politics. Just after the war, people did not want to be the losers," Dr Kiess says.
"In West Germany, there were always parties and groups that tried to build on this kind of revisionism, that built on the still ongoing anti-Semitism in society."
"It never played any role on the national level, but it was always there."
And reunification provided a big chance for these groups.
"Neo-Nazis and these far-right activists … took the opportunity of a crumbling state, a crumbling economy. [They] went to East Germany and built up their structures, their organisations," Dr Kiess says.
"Then they were successful in [German states like] Saxony, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. They entered the state parliaments several times."
"We can now see that where these Neo-Nazi parties were successful in the 1990s and 2000s, they're the municipalities, the regions where the AfD has most support today."
The AfD's next big test
The AfD was founded in 2013 as an offshoot of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and has since shifted further to the right.
It has advocated ending migration and halting action on climate change.
Germany's domestic intelligence agency has since put the group under observation for suspected extremism, a move that has been backed by the courts.
At the European Parliament election in June, the AfD won 16 per cent of the vote, winning the most votes in five eastern German states and coming in second, nationally.
It has also performed well at state elections in the country's east, including winning the most votes in the Thuringia state election in September — the first for a far-right party in any German state since Nazi rule.
But this year's electoral success has also been marked by several controversies, including a fine for its Thuringia state leader Björn Höcke after he used a Nazi slogan.
And surveys have shown that a majority of Germans have a negative opinion of the party.
So just how significant is the recent electoral success of the AfD?
"In most [European] countries, we have seen far-right parties in the government, supporting minority governments," Dr Kiess says.
"Germany has — because of its history — stepped back from this, until now."
He says this year, the AfD has gained momentum because the political discourse was focused on the ills of migration, "fuelled by the conservative party ... and even taken up by the left and the Green party".
"That is very interesting and very concerning because we have seen the whole political spectrum move to the right, which, in most instances across Europe, has always helped the far right in the long run."
The party's next test will come sooner than expected.
Last week, the country's ruling coalition collapsed after Chancellor Olaf Scholz sacked his finance minister, and a snap federal election is now set for February 23.
The AfD has been polling in second place nationally, but other parties have pledged to shun it as a coalition partner.
In the fallout of the government's collapse, AfD co-chairman Tino Chrupalla laid out the party's election pitch.
"We want an end to the integration of illegal migrants into the social system, the deportation of criminals who have already been ordered to leave the country, and we want to close the borders," he said.
