Hildebrandt’s campaign underscores the simmering resentments that have returned to the forefront of political debate here. Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, what were formerly East and West Germany are drifting apart politically and socially. Support for the far-right populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has settled nationwide, but it is swelling in the east.

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Regional disparities have propelled populists elsewhere in Europe: In Italy, the League party has built a huge bastion of support in the north, and in Sweden, the Sweden Democrats enjoy widespread backing in the deep south. In Germany, though, regionalism is magnified by the political, social, and economic consequences of living as separate countries for more than four decades. In the weeks after European Parliament elections in May, #WirimOsten, or “Us in the east,” exploded on Twitter as East Germans endeavored to explain their region and its people.

In Massen, Hildebrandt took a seat at the head of the table to make her case for a quota. “We can’t just pretend that east and west don’t exist, that it’s all the same now—it’s just not true,” she said, gesturing emphatically over a cup of steaming coffee. “Where the power, money, and influence are—that’s where East Germans are massively underrepresented.”

The gap between east and west has narrowed over the past 30 years, and Angela Merkel, the country’s chancellor and arguably the most powerful woman in the world, is an East German. Yet with three key state elections in the east this fall, the region’s political disaffection has sparked a growing discussion on both sides of the divide to understand why the fault lines appear to be deepening. The quota is part of that debate. A study by the German Center for Integration and Migration Research in April showed that more than 50 percent of East Germans polled said they backed the proposal. And in March, the Left party introduced a motion in the Bundestag calling for an East German quota, arguing that the German constitution mandates proportionate representation of civil servants from all states.

The growing regional support for the AfD is attributed, in part, to this underrepresentation, according to Hildebrandt. In May’s European elections it was the strongest party in the eastern states of Saxony and Brandenburg, with 25.3 percent and 19.9 percent respectively, compared with 11 percent overall across Germany.

Hildebrandt is a bit baffled by the hand-wringing over the AfD after the elections. She has observed rising xenophobia in the east for years. In her village in Brandenburg, she witnessed how the mood started to sour in 2015 as Germany opened its doors to Syrians fleeing their civil war; as more than 1 million migrants arrived in the country, xenophobia mushroomed. The village pastor openly railed against Muslims. Things got so bad that she and her family found an apartment in Berlin as a respite.