THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A village in east Germany has been taken over by neo-Nazis and the local Mayor claims the authorities have given up on trying to impose order.
People living nearby say that Jamel, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state, has become a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis from across Europe.
Jamel comprises just ten farmhouses, at least seven of which are occupied by far-right extremists. Swastikas have been daubed on the walls of the houses and a plaque at the entrance to the village states "Village of Jamel – free, social, national". There is also a sign pointing to Adolf Hitler's birthplace – "Braunau am Inn 855 kilometres".
Beer bottles and car tyres litter the streets and guard dogs strain at their chains in front yards. Young men with shaved heads practise shooting in the woods surrounding the village and children give Nazi salutes to any visitors. There is an annual party to celebrate Hitler's birthday.
"Now, they see Jamel as a 'nationally liberated zone'," Horst Lohmeyer, who lives nearby, told Spiegel. >>> | Wednesday, January 05, 2011
SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Hitler salutes in the street and firing practice in the forest: Neo-Nazis have taken over an entire village in Germany, and authorities appear to have given up efforts to combat the problem. The place has come to symbolize the far right's growing influence in parts of the former communist east.
Horst and Birgit Lohmeyer have been working on their life's dream for six years, renovating a house in the woods near Jamel, a tiny village near Wismar in the far northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Birgit Lohmeyer writes crime novels, her husband is a musician, and both try to pretend everything is normal here in Jamel.
It wasn't easy to find their new home. The Lohmeyers spent months driving out to the countryside every weekend, heading east from where they lived in Hamburg, but most of the houses they saw were too expensive. Then they came across the inexpensive red brick farmhouse in Jamel. Slightly run-down, but not far from the Baltic Sea, the house sits surrounded by lime and maple trees, near a lake.
The Lohmeyers knew that a notorious neo-Nazi lived nearby -- Sven Krüger, a demolition contractor and high-level member of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD). What the Lohmeyers didn't know was that other neighbors felt terrorized by Krüger. He and his associates were in the process of buying up the entire village.
Jamel is an example of the far-right problem that has plagued Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for years. The rural region, once part of communist East Germany, has a poor reputation in this regard -- the NPD, which glorifies the Third Reich, has been in the state parliament since 2006 and neo-Nazi crimes are part of daily life. In recent months, a series of attacks against politicians from all the democratic parties has shaken the state. Sometimes hardly a week goes by without an attack on another electoral district office, with paint bombs, right-wing graffiti and broken windows. >>> Maximilian Popp | Monday, January 03, 2011
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