BERLIN, May 17 (UPI) -- Black soccer fans attending the FIFA Soccer World Cup are risking their lives in eastern Germany, a neo-Nazi hotbed, according to a former government spokesman.
"There are small and middle-sized cities in Brandenburg and elsewhere, where I would advise no one with a different skin color to go to," Uwe-Karsten Heye, a former government spokesman, told a German radio station. "They would possibly not leave from there alive."
The remarks from Heye, who now works as an anti-racism activist, has triggered a wave of public outrage among eastern German politicians.
Brandenburg's Interior Minister Matthias Platzeck denounced the comments, saying Heye libeled his state and "entire regions."
Brandenburg, which surrounds Berlin, has the highest per capita rate of violent neo-Nazi crime in the country, according to a report by the Verfassungsschutz, the police's security agency.
Last month, a black German of Ethiopian descent was nearly beaten to death in Potsdam, Brandenburg, in what officials say was a racially motivated crime.
More than 1.5 millon fans from all over the world are expected to flock to Germany for the month-long soccer tournament, which starts June 9.
