Last month the German Government approved a package of measures against right-wing extremism and the dissemination of hate through the Internet in response to the attack by a right-wing radical on a synagogue in Halle in the eastern part of the country. German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said he continues to consider right-wing extremism and terrorism to pose a significant threat.
Seehofer confirmed the danger when presenting the measures in Berlin. He reminded the public of the crimes committed after the turn of the millenium by the National Socialist Underground (NSU), a neo-Nazi group that murdered 10 people, most of whom were of Turkish origin, between 2000 and 2007, as well as the murder this year of Walter Lübcke, a politician with the governing Christian Democrats, to which a right-wing extremist has confessed.
The German authorities recorded the existence last year of 24 100 individual right-wing extremists, roughly half of whom (12 700) are prepared to use violence, according to counter-intelligence. Last year right-wing radicals in Germany committed a total of 20 431 felonies, slightly lower than the year before, when they committed 20 520 felonies.
