Alarm in Germany over increase in right-wing hate

BERLIN－As Germany's president expressed his sympathy and shock during a candlelight vigil for nine people killed by an immigrant-hating gunman, a woman called out from the crowd, demanding action, not words.

But the country's leaders are struggling to figure out how to counter a recent rise in right-wing hate, 75 years after the Nazis were driven from power.

The shooting rampage on Wednesday that began at a hookah bar in the Frankfurt suburb of Hanau was Germany's third deadly far-right attack in a matter of months and came at a time when the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has become the country's first political party in decades to establish itself as a significant force on the extreme right.

In the wake of the latest violence, German Chancellor Angela Merkel denounced the "poison" of racism and hatred in Germany, and other politicians similarly condemned the shootings.

Germany has strict laws prohibiting any glorification of the Nazis, with bans on symbols like the swastika and gestures like the stiff-armed salute, and denial of the Holocaust is illegal.

But security officials have frequently been accused of being "blind in the right eye", for intentionally or inadvertently overlooking some far-right activity.

That was said to be the case with a group calling itself National Socialist Underground, or NSU, which was able to kill 10 people, primarily immigrants, between 2000 and 2007 in attacks written off by investigators as organized crime. It was only after two NSU members died in 2011 in a botched robbery that the group's activities were uncovered.

Mehmet Gurcan Daimaguler, an attorney who represented victims' families at the trial of an NSU member, said German authorities need to give more than lip service to fight racism.

"We haven't really begun yet a real fight against neo-Nazis, and one of the reasons, for me, clearly is the victims," he said. "The victims of Nazis are not members of the German middle class, but Muslims, migrants, LGBT people, immigrants. As long as the victim pool, so to say, was limited to minorities, it was not considered a real threat for society."

Seehofer said that has changed, noting increased resources are being devoted to fighting far-right crime, including the addition of hundreds of new federal investigators and domestic intelligence agents.

Still, with national elections coming next year, politicians are grappling with strategies to confront AfD and blunt its appeal to voters.

"One cannot see this crime in isolation," said Norbert Roettgen, one of several members of Merkel's party hoping to succeed her as chancellor when her term ends next year. "We need to fight the poison that is being dragged into our society by the AfD and others."

Agencies via Xinhua