Editor's note: A day after this story appeared, the public prosecutor's office reported that the incident likely never occurred. A closed-circuit security camera located at the regional train station at Alexander Platz in central Berlin filmed a man stumbling into the train tracks. He was able to stand up and walk a short distance away before a knee injury prevented him from going any further. DNA tests performed on the blood found on the tracks match the DNA of the alleged attack victim Gianni Congia. Police are now investigating Congia, who has declined to comment on the developments, for falsely reporting a crime.

An Italian man living in Berlin says he has been beaten up by three unknown assailants in an apparent hate crime that together with other recent incidents is undermining the Germamy's bid to project a cosmopolitan image during the World Cup . It is also fuelling concern abroad that foreigners are at risk from far-right thugs in Germany.

Gianni Congia, a 30-year-old restaurant worker who has lived in Germany for 15 years, has had to undergo surgery after his kneecap was broken in the attack. He told Bild newspaper he was walking in Berlin's trendy eastern Prenzlauer Berg district last Saturday night when he saw three shaven-headed men coming towards him. "Suddenly one of them asked me if I had a cigarette. I said no. Then one of them asked me if I'm German. I said I was Italian. One of them shouted 'foreigner.' A rod smashed into my leg, the kneecap broke. The second blow got me on my temple. I slumped down, later managed to ring my brother with my mobile phone," he told Bild.

"The Nazis won't drive me out of the city. I'm staying here. Berliners are friendly people. I'm staying here. I feel at home here," he added.

The attack comes just weeks after an Ethiopian-born man was beaten up and seriously injured  by two assailants who called him "nigger" in Potsdam near Berlin. And in the eastern town of Pömmelte, four men aged between 16 and 20 are on trial for assaulting a 12-year-old boy, also of Ethiopian descent. One of them allegedly extinguished a burning cigarette on the victim.

Taken together the cases have reawakened concern about racist violence in eastern Germany after frequent attacks on foreigners there during the early 1990s when they became a scapegoat for surging unemployment following German reunification.

Image abroad in danger

"If things go on like this Berlin's image in the world will be severely damaged," said the head of Berlin's tourism authority, Hans Peter Nerger. The interior minister of the city, Ehrhart Körting, said: "Such acts bring shame on Berlin and mustn't be tolerated. We must do everything to ensure that the attackers are quickly found."

But the damage has already been done. Last month a Nigerian government delegation cancelled its booking in a Potsdam hotel after the attack in that city. And this week, Italian newspapers have devoting extensive coverage to Saturday's attack in reports that cite neo-Nazis as a problem overshadowing the World Cup.

Il Giornale wrote: "Germany is hosting the World Cup in less than four weeks. It looks as if Nazis will wreck this festival."

Corriere Della Sera wrote: "If you're Italian, you'll get beaten up. And that so soon before the World Cup!"

Italy's biggest-selling daily, La Repubblica wrote: "The former East Germany has gone through 12 years of Nazism and 50 years of brutal Stalinism. For many people there brutality is normal, democracy is still regarded as strange. The new neo-Nazis in Germany regard foreigners as parasites who are taking away their prosperity and jobs."

On Monday, evening some 500 people marched through the Prenzlauer Berg district to protest against racism. Ironically, the once run-down area has undergone massive gentrification and is now regarded as a haven for yuppie families. It even has one of the highest rates of childbirth in the country.