The Mob Marches On
New Zealand Listener|September 29 - October 5 2018

The Populist contagion sweeping Europe spreads to Germany.

Cathrin Schaer
The Mob Marches On

Driving into the east German countryside can be a nerve-racking experience, and not just because the roads are narrower and the coffee worse. It’s because we know that, behind those twitching lace curtains in those respectable cottages, there are woodchopping, apple-picking, hay-baling neo-Nazis lurking.

How do we know? Because occasionally they emerge. This past month, they came out on the streets of the east German city of Chemnitz. After a 35-year-old local was stabbed to death there, and two suspects, an Iraqi and a Syrian, were arrested, a protest was organised.

Some of the demonstrators were ordinary citizens worried about law and order. But there was also a nasty conflation of football hooligans, neo-Nazis and mixed martial arts fighters – the last’s motto: “white brothers testing themselves against white brothers”. Those groups called adherents to come to the Chemnitz protest, eventually estimated at 6000 strong.

Denne historien er fra September 29 - October 5 2018-utgaven av New Zealand Listener.

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Denne historien er fra September 29 - October 5 2018-utgaven av New Zealand Listener.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

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