Photo Gallery The Right-Wing Reach
Firefighters in Nauen near Berlin work to put out a fire at a local gymnasium. The building, which was to be used as a hostel for asylum-seekers, was gutted in a fire that is believed to have been a deliberate arson attack conducted by far-right extremists.
The attack on the gymnasium was one of many that have been perpetrated across Germany this year by extremists in response to a large surge in the number of refugees entering the country. The fire in Nauen was the 27th arson attack against an asylum-seekers' hostel in Germany since 2012 and the fifth within a single week.
Here, opponents of a planned asylum-seekers' hostel in the eastern town of Freital in Saxony are seen on June 26. Freital is located in the Swiss Saxony region, which is a known hotbed of xenophobia, anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment in Germany.
As the smoke still smoldered in Nauen, officals in Germany began investigating more seriously whether there are links and deeper ties among far-right extremist groups in Germany. Many academics studying neo-Nazis believe there have to be and that the murderous National Socialist Underground terror cell was not an isolated phenomenon -- at least in terms of ideology.
In April, arsonists set fire to a building in Tröglitz, a town in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, that was being remodelled to house 40 refugees later in the spring. It became a symbol of the new wave of attacks and left many in Germany and also abroad wondering if the deadly xenophobia that plagued parts of Germany during the early 1990s had returned.
The attacks are by no means isolated to the east. On August 24, arsonists in Weissach im Tal in the western state of Baden-Württemberg burned down a building that was to be used to accommodate asylum-seekers.
On August 21, around 1,000 protesters marched to demonstrate against asylum-seekers currently being housed in a former hardware supply store in Heidenau. "Stop the asylum flood," their banner reads.
The protests have been ongoing for almost a year now. At this November march in Berlin's Köpenick district, demonstraters brandish a sign reading, "We are the people, no to the hostel!" They are protesting the opening of refugee accommodations in the area.
