How Dangerous Is Germany’s Far Right?

German pundits and politicians have a new favorite phrase: “Resist beginnings.” It comes from Ovid, who cautioned that “the remedy comes too late when the disease has gained strength by long delays.” But whereas Ovid was talking about the danger of love, Germans are warning against hate. More than probably anyone else, they’re anxious about rising far-right extremism, including neo-Nazism.

In the home of the original Nazism, it’s always hard to tell if people are being hysterical about the threat or naive in belittling it. An increase in hate speech, anti-Semitism and racist violence certainly appears to be a trend that spans the whole West, from Britain to New Zealand and the U.S. But for obvious reasons, the same phenomenon resonates differently in Germany.