Much has been written about the village of Jamel near Wismar in the far northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Hitler salutes in the streets, firing practice in local forests and outsiders chased away. The small run-down settlement has become a dark symbol of the growing reach of neo-Nazi ideology.
In the run-up to Sunday's local ballot in the state, a journalist from the website VBS TV arrived in Jamel. Although she was familiar with the village's larger-than-life reputation, she was shocked to see a large rusty barbeque inscribed with the phrase "happy holocaust."
The grill was in the barbed-wire encircled garden of the office of the far-right extremist National Democratic Party (NPD). The backyard was overlooked by a watchtower and a red, black and white old German Reich flag of the type used by the far-right scene.I briefly discussed the NPD here.
"I was shocked and I just couldn't believe what I saw. It felt really surreal," VBS TV journalist Barbara Dabrowska told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "It was like in a bad American movie that tries to come up with the most ridiculous idea for how to make Nazis look really terrible. ... They probably meant it as a joke, but I was annoyed by their either stupid or incredibly provocative approach."
(h/t a new blog, Onion Tears News)