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Eva Hauptfleisch returned to her parents' old house last month in the tiny town of Ostritz, in Germany's east, to join a resistance effort against neo-Nazis.
She was not alone.
Some 3,000 supporters turned out to oppose a Shield and Sword (SS) festival taking place in a hotel on the outskirts of the town, metres from the Polish border.
"Why Ostritz?" a journalist asked Thorsten Heise, the head of the extreme-right National Democratic Party (NPD) in the nearby State of Thuringia, and one of the organisers of the neo-Nazi event.
"Why not?" he responded. "There's not enough going on in Saxony. We're making politics more lively."
Support for far-right parties has blossomed here. In the 2017 federal election more than 30% of people in this district voted for the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD).
But many townspeople and their supporters are determined not to let Ostritz become the poster-town for the extreme right.
She was not alone.
Some 3,000 supporters turned out to oppose a Shield and Sword (SS) festival taking place in a hotel on the outskirts of the town, metres from the Polish border.
"Why Ostritz?" a journalist asked Thorsten Heise, the head of the extreme-right National Democratic Party (NPD) in the nearby State of Thuringia, and one of the organisers of the neo-Nazi event.
"Why not?" he responded. "There's not enough going on in Saxony. We're making politics more lively."
Support for far-right parties has blossomed here. In the 2017 federal election more than 30% of people in this district voted for the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD).
But many townspeople and their supporters are determined not to let Ostritz become the poster-town for the extreme right.
The tiny German town and the neo-Nazis
Posted from bbc.com
Germany
Racism
Immigration
Posted 6 y ago
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