Richard Bernstein has a good piece in today’s New York Times where he describes the ambivalent reaction of the people of Mücka to a gathering of the NPD. At first the townspeople reacted with fear, but the NPDs low-key approach eventually won them over:
"I went house to house to talk to people at the time of the
festival," Mücka’s mayor, Holger Theurich, said in an interview at his
home shortly before the round table began. "At the time, most people
were worried about it. People refused to work there even though they
could have used the money."But then the N.P.D. succeeded in
creating a good image as a party," Mr. Theurich continued, "and the
same people who were afraid in the beginning were saying, ‘These people
are O.K.’ "There was no violence, no intimidation, not a
cigarette butt was left behind, Mr. Theurich said almost admiringly of
the party’s care to create a good impression. "They presented
themselves in a successful manner."
The article goes on to show how the NPD has built on this initial trust by holding a series of meetings where people now feel free to express views that were seldom heard up to now:
"In the Third Reich there was fascism, but only at the Italian
Embassy," said one of the National Democrats’ parliamentary members,
Klaus Jürgen Menzel, a white-haired, slightly stooped man, making one
such statement. "It wasn’t the Third Reich that declared war," Mr.
Menzel continued. "It was the French and the British, and they did it
because the strong German forces were in the East."
