> It makes sense that the the economically struggling former communist areas would be both more drawn to extreme parties and have a distaste for the left.

That: "have a distaste for the left" is extremely wrong, because before the AfD, the far-left parties which traced their history back to the SED (the socialist party of the GDR (East Germany)) were very popular there, much more so than in West Germany.

> They are not a left wing party, not at all. They are a far right party.

They are a populist semi big tent party as well. They are not particularly coherent but there is some overlap between some of their policies and what some in the far-left might support (Euroscepticism, the Euro and such)