Fear and fury of German far right

While many Germans have welcomed record numbers of refugees to their country, the new arrivals have unleashed fear and fury in small eastern German towns such as Riesa, a centre of far-right support in a country ashamed of its Nazi past.

In Riesa, a distinctly ordinary steelmaking town about 135km south of Berlin, several hundred have marched down the cobbled streets at two radical right-wing protests in the last month to vent their anger at what they see as “foreign infiltration”.

Many people in the town, where the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) has 6.3% support, about five times as much as it got in the last national election, fear they will have to pay for the rising numbers of asylum seekers arriving here.