'Nazis out ... of the heads' - a protest in Dresden. Photograph: Norbert Millauer/Getty
Two days after the neo-Nazi National Democratic party of Germany won seats in regional elections in the eastern states of Saxony and Brandenburg, the German media is mulling over what happened.
Spiegel magazine profiles the 12 far-right politicians who won seats in Saxony, noting that the "new extremists who now have a voice in parliament" include a property manager, an editor, a doctor and a driving instructor. Spiegel also visits the village of Schöna, but fails to find a single voter who admits to being among the 23% who voted for the NPD. Meanwhile a user on Spiegel's talk forum calls for the party to be banned.
Over at the tabloid Bild former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt urges Germany's leaders to be more honest, suggesting that voters might not have switched to far-right (and far-left) parties had the government been more honest about unpopular austerity measures designed to shake up the flagging economy. "Tell the people the truth at last," Mr Schmidt urges in an interview with Germany's best-selling paper.
Kurt Kister, writing in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, says the biggest loser is Angela Merkel, the leader of the opposition Christian Democrats, who lost their absolute majority in Saxony. He describes Saxony as the "centre of German political irrationality in an article headlined "The east votes differently".
Amid a slew of headlines in Britain bemoaning the rise of neo-Nazis (the Express went for 'The Nazis are on the march again', while the Daily Mail favoured ' Votes pile up for German neo-Nazis'), Paul Spiegel, the leader of Germany's tiny Jewish community, said that Sunday's election results reminded him of the last days of the Weimar Republic.
However, the Daily Telegraph dismissed the comparison as "specious". "There is no Hitler waiting in the wings; even if there were, German democracy is robust enough to resist him. What Germany needs is not a Hitler but a Thatcher," writes the paper, returning to a favourite theme. The Daily Kos, meanwhile, queries the "neo-Nazi surge", pointing out that the biggest electoral gains were in fact made by "the PDS - the communist successor party to the Stalinist SED that controlled East Germany for 40 years".
