Reply #6: Right wing nationalism and xenophobia seem to go hand-in-hand. [View All]

[pampango]

The former communist east of Germany suffered chronic depopulation after unification in 1990 triggered by an economic slump. Mecklenburg was particularly hard hit. A generation of sullen young men has found solace and company in far-right groups.

The Mecklenburg port city of Rostock saw Germany's worst post-war anti-immigrant riots, in August 1992, when hundreds of extremists attacked a building housing asylum-seekers with Molotov cocktails, watched by neighbors who applauded them. Rostock marked the start of a wave of xenophobic attacks across eastern Germany where foreigners were seen as scapegoats for the upheaval that followed unification.

The per-capita incidence of violent far-right crimes in Mecklenburg is the fifth-highest among Germany's 16 states, according to figures from the domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The four states with higher crime rates are all in eastern Germany.

"We can't project a cosmopolitan image if there are posters in almost every village saying "Foreigners Out," said Wolf-Dieter Ringguth, the chairman of the Mecklenburg Lakes Tourism Federation. "Many hotel owners have had to explain to their guests that the number of posters in no way relates to the number of voters."

From the right wing perspective you have to be able to blame "them" for your problems. There aren't enough Jews left in Germany to represent a plausible "them" so the far right has shifted the focus to foreigners.