Analysis: Extremist mob shocks Germany

BERLIN, Aug. 28 (UPI) -- Berlin has decided to boost its security and neo-Nazi prevention measures after a xenophobic incident in eastern Germany.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the incident as "shameful" after a town festival in eastern Germany turned violent. Eight Indian men were injured in the attack on Aug. 18 in Muegeln, a city of 5,000 some 30 miles northwest of Dresden, the capital of the state of Saxony.

The men were assaulted in a festival tent, and then hunted by as many as 50 youths as they ran for cover to a nearby pizza parlor.

The mob that pursued the Indians shouted xenophobic slurs and encircled the pizzeria. In the end, some 150 to 200 people had gathered around the house, one witness told the online version of German news magazine Der Spiegel.

Only a quick dispatch of roughly 70 police officers was able to prevent the mob from storming the building. Besides the eight Indians, four attackers were injured, as well as two police officers.

India's ambassador to Germany, Meera Shankar, told the Berlin-based Tagesspiegel newspaper he was "very worried" about the incident, while Stephan Kramer, the secretary-general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said eastern Germany was full of "no-go areas" where foreigners should stay away from, online daily Netzeitung said.

The incident has shocked Germany, resulted in bad press all over the world and refueled a debate that has simmered ever since the early 1990s: How to defuse the mostly xenophobic violence in Germany’s eastern part?

After it surfaced that the city of Muegeln unsuccessfully applied for government aid to curb right-wing extremism, politicians were quick to dispatch more money and a mobile "crisis intervention team" tasked with talking to victims and citizens alike.

An additional $7 million a year is flowing to extremism-prevention measures, used mainly in eastern Germany.

The measures come as Germany is looking to meet its demand for skilled workers (mainly IT specialists and engineers) from foreign countries -- India being one of those countries. German economy officials have warned of a "detrimental effect" on attempts to lure these workers to companies in eastern Germany -- especially in Saxony, where foreign employees are key to the young but quickly growing microchip industry.

But what are the roots of the surging neo-Nazi violence in eastern Germany?

Experts cite mainly the high unemployment rate outside economic beacons such as Leipzig and Dresden: In rural areas near the Polish border, unemployment towers at 30 percent. Foreigners are virtually absent in these regions, which are breeding grounds for xenophobia.

Young people born there either leave for the western states or settle for a life with little to no job security -- an outlook that sparks an increased readiness for violence and a growing likelihood to join far-right groups like the National Democratic Party, or NPD, experts say.

The NPD has gained entry into several state parliaments (mainly in eastern Germany) and has subculturally taken the lead in the economically struggling regions, which the main parties have largely abandoned, critics say.

The Muegeln incident has revived calls for a ban of the NPD; German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has called the NPD a "far-right extremist party" infiltrated by "individual neo-Nazis."

However, Berlin has in the past failed to ban the party when it surfaced that a German domestic intelligence agency was spying on the group. But key officials of the center-left government party, the Social Democratic Party, or SPD, have pledged to give a ban another try.

"I am pretty sure that we can and will be able to ban the NPD," Hubertus Heil, secretary-general of the SPD, told German news channel n-tv. "The last attempt failed because of formal reasons and not as regards content. We should join our political forces once again."

The last remark was a nod to Merkel and her center-right Christian Democratic Union, the other half of Germany’s coalition government. Merkel and other top government officials have been cool toward calls for a ban: For one, experts doubt that a ban would hold up in court because of the spy activities; secondly, Berlin is not eager to recall their spies who are providing valuable information on anti-constitutional activities of the group.