German Neo-Nazi attacks on the rise

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20090217-17489.html

Trade unionist Holger Kindler has been to at least 20 rallies to protest neo-Nazi gatherings in various German cities and towns. But he says he's never seen anything like what happened last Saturday.Kindler was among the 80 unionists and leftists who were having a break at a motorway rest stop in the eastern German state of Thuringia on Saturday when a busload of 41 far-right extremists pulled in. He and his colleagues had just joined some 10,000 people demonstrating a major neo-Nazi march in Dresden.'


'One of my colleagues who was in the car park called me on my cell phone and told me they had arrived and were aggressive,'' he said. ''I just went into shock. It was a Nazi crew that was very political, not just sub-cultural. They weren't satisfied with walking through Dresden.''Five anti-fascist demonstrators were left injured, including one with serious skull fractures. The neo-Nazis weren't bumbling skinheads, Kindler said. They were autonome Nationalisten or free nationalists – a radical, political segment of the far-right scene in Germany who are growing in number and, experts fear, poised to create a new wave of neo-Nazi violence.


The attack at the rest stop follows recent figures showing a 30 percent rise last year in far-right crime and the shocking knife assault on Alois Mannichl, police chief in the southern town of Passau. Though investigators have yet to find Mannichl’s assailant, they are looking for a man described as a tall skinhead.These disparate events, according to observers, are explained by upheavals in the far-right scene caused by the breakdown of old alliances and the emergence of new, aggressive splinter groups.



''It's a trend,'' said Matthias Adrian, a former skinhead who now helps extremists quit the scene. ''We've noticed more threats against those getting out and attacks on democratic activists by right-wing extremists. The atmosphere has changed and it is now more aggressive. This is the tip of the iceberg.''