Neo-Nazi gains

last updated 8 January 2015

Saxony, Germany

Far-right, xenophobic parties won seats this week in two state parliaments in eastern Germany. In Saxony, formerly part of communist East Germany, the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party, campaigning on a platform of “German money for German interests,” got 9 percent of the vote—nearly as much as the ruling Social Democrats. And in Brandenburg, another extremist party retained the few seats it had won in the last election. Politicians and analysts downplayed the far-right gains, saying the country was not experiencing a repeat of the extremism of the 1930s that paved the way for Nazism. “This is not a danger for democracy in the Federal Republic,” said Hajo Funke, a political scientist at the Free University of Berlin. “It’s an anti-establishment vote, which is still limited to the east.”