Development of neo-Nazi structures in Eastern Germany
The collapse of East Germany offered West German neo-Nazis an unexpected new recruiting ground. Between the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and reunification in October 1990, they attempted to gain a foothold in East Germany. In January 1990, the Hamburg neo-Nazi Michael Kühnen drew up a "Work Plan East", which proposed the systematic establishment of far-right structures in East Germany.
In the 1990s, the West German neo-Nazis found fertile ground in the East, with many young people who openly advocated authoritarian and racist world views. Hamburg neo-Nazis helped to build up extreme right-wing infrastructure and organisations. Lawyers such as Jürgen Rieger and later the Deutsche Rechtsbüro [German Legal Office] offered legal training and advice. Other functionaries organised events and made their resources available. In the days before the pogrom in Rostock-Lichtenhagen, the deputy chairman of the NPD-affiliated Hamburger Liste für Ausländerstopp had 100,000 copies of a racist leaflet printed and distributed in Rostock. During the riots, instructions were radioed from Christian Worch's car.

The concepts of the Anti-Antifa, the Freie Kameradschaften, and the far-right terrorist Führerlose Widerstand, which were devised and disseminated by neo-Nazis from Hamburg, were also adopted and implemented in the East. Well-known examples are the Anti-Antifa Ostthüringen Kameradschaft and the Thüringer Heimatschutz, from which the NSU terrorist cell later emerged.
Throughout the 1990s, the West German neo-Nazis used their concepts and resources to bolster the extreme right-wing youth culture in the new federal states in the East.