THE “patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident”, known as Pegida, still march. On April 13th 10,000 rallied in Dresden, their base, brandishing anti-foreigner slogans, as they have done on 22 previous Mondays since October. This time they featured an international addition: Geert Wilders, leader of a xenophobic party in the Netherlands. “In my eyes, you are heroes,” he told Pegida. “Islam does not belong in Germany.”
At least Pegida’s followers are not violent. That cannot be said of the 47 cases in the first three months of the year in which Germans have physically attacked asylum-seekers or their abodes, according to Pro-Asyl, a group that helps refugees. In 2014 the police counted 162 such attacks by neo-Nazis. Much of this new xenophobia can be explained by a surge in asylum-seekers coming to Germany from Kosovo, the Middle East and other trouble spots. Germany takes in more asylum-seekers than any other country: 200,000 last year, a fifth of the global total. Some 300,000 may come this year. The asylum-seekers are spread across Germany. Some end up in less tolerant places.
One is Tröglitz in Saxony…
