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The group injured only two people, a Syrian refugee and a resident of the housing project, but prosecutors say the damage was intended to be far worse. “They wanted to create a climate of fear and repression,” federal prosecutor Joern Hauschild told the court last year. “In at least one case, they accepted that people could die.”On Wednesday, a judge will deliver a verdict on charges against eight of the alleged terrorists — seven men and a woman, ages 20 to 40 — who have been on trial in nearby Dresden since last March. The charges include forming a terrorist group, attempted murder, and grievous bodily harm, and the defendants could receive up to life sentences. Their attorneys aren't denying their clients' actions, only their categorization as terrorism.The case is one of only a handful of federal trials of homegrown terrorists in modern German history. The group was part of a new wave of right-wing extremism in which offenders are increasingly willing to use violence against both foreigners and the politicians they blame for their presence.Across Europe, populist anti-Islam and anti-immigration movements are helping to radicalize these extremists. To take two more recent examples, a Britain First supporter drove his car into worshipers outside a London mosque last year, and an Italian gunman, a former candidate for the Northern League, shot six African immigrants during a rampage last month.“They accepted that people could die.”
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The group puffed themselves up by sharing pictures of the explosions, as well as group photographs they had posed for. In one, they wore hoods and gave Hitler salutes behind a swastika flag; in another they raised their fists and a burning torch. In these chats, later published in the German weekly Der Spiegel and elsewhere, they joked about the attacks, often seeming to enjoy the process.“Just set off a firework at the intersection in front of a shelter. Nasty explosion,” wrote one of the accused, bus driver Philipp Wendlin.“We heard the boom, you rogue,” replied another member of the group.“We heard the boom, you rogue.”
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In Nattke’s eyes, there’s an undeniable link between these protests and the violence that followed. “For everybody, even far-right extremists, there’s a step that needs to be taken in order to carry out a violent act. And this step isn’t easy,” he said.“But when you’re at a protest and there are thousands of people there, all saying the refugees are criminals, you go home and think: ‘OK, we’re 10,000-strong on the street. We’re 200,000-strong on Facebook. We’re the majority.’ And that step suddenly becomes easier to take.”RAA Sachsen, an organization that provides counseling to victims of right-wing crimes in Saxony, logged one far-right attack in Freital in 2013, and none the following year. In 2015, there were 31. “There were so many violent fantasies being expressed, people saying violent, racist things, and hardly anyone was opposing it,” said Andrea Hübler, a far-right specialist at the organization.Nattke said Saxony’s status as a stronghold for right-wing extremist networks has been compounded by the longstanding failure of the state government to acknowledge and confront the issue. Back in 2000, Saxony’s then–Premier Kurt Biedenkopf famously declared, “Saxons are immune to right-wing extremism,” a statement of either stunning naiveté or denial. Members of the National Socialist Underground — Germany’s most notorious far-right terrorists, responsible for the murders of nine immigrants and a policewoman across the country from 2000 to 2007 — were based in the Saxon town of Zwickau, about 80 miles from Freital.“When there are thousands of people there all saying the refugees are criminals, you go home and think: ‘We’re the majority.’”
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Thomas Geithner, a spokesman for the local police, said the fact that the number of refugees in the town has decreased significantly meant “everything has returned to normal.” But, he conceded, “right-wing ideology doesn’t disappear overnight.”To Hübler, the right-wing specialist, it’s clear this entire ugly episode has yet to yield any sort of silver lining. “The xenophobic climate hasn’t changed in Freital,” she said. “Migrants are given a very pointed message: ‘We don’t want you here’ … All it would take for the violence to return is for the number of refugees to increase again.”In July 2016, Kummer’s foster son Romeo started over in the west of the country, where he hoped to find a more cosmopolitan, tolerant environment. He relocated to a similarly sized town in North-Rhine Westphalia, settling into a comfortable new life as an apprentice at a logistics company, making friends on a local football team. Kummer fully understands his reasons for leaving Freital, but it upsets her that a capable, ambitious guy looking to make something of his second shot in life wasn’t able to do so in her hometown.It’s not just the migrants who are leaving. Richter, too, has relocated; even though the people who allegedly blew up his car are in custody, he found himself hounded and harassed by their sympathizers. He was regularly accosted and intimidated on the street — called a “leftist tick,” a “gay leftist pig.” Graffiti saying “Richter out” was spray-painted on a building in town. Fearing that he could be targeted again, he started dramatically changing his daily routine, switching up the time and route he took to work each day, and leaving town on the weekends.“Right-wing ideology doesn’t disappear overnight.”