Disappointed Eastern Germans Turn Right

Business, the man said, was good. In this hard-pressed eastern German town, prospects also are strong for the right-wing National Democratic Party, or NPD, which emerged decades ago from the ideological ruins of the Nazi regime. With many in this part of Saxony state feeling betrayed by the country's main political parties, the NPD nearly doubled its support in local elections last June, winning 21% of the vote in Koenigstein.

Much of the right wing's success is rooted in the failures of German reunification since the end of the Cold War. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the NPD targeted poor cities in the east, marketing its xenophobic rhetoric while trying to tame a radical fringe of skinheads. Although still yearning for an ethnically pure "fatherland," the party has become more populist, working on local problems such as schools and roads to help enhance its stature.

Few members are suggesting a renaissance of right-wing political enthusiasm, but high unemployment, trimmed social programs and a loss of pride among laid-off workers are strengthening support for extremist politicians. In September, the NPD won 9.2% of the vote in Saxony, giving it an unprecedented 12 seats in the state parliament. The party is not a factor in national politics, but its members are getting elected to town and regional councils. The NPD and other radical right-wing parties have 313 politicians serving in municipal governments across Germany.

Uwe Leichsenring embodies the NPD's shift in personality and tactics. The pudgy-cheeked owner of a driving school was once investigated by German intelligence for his association with the SSS, a banned radical group known for violence toward immigrants. Today, he is an NPD voice on the Koenigstein council and in the Saxon parliament, where he wears button-down shirts and speaks of the ills of globalization and of "reconstructing the national identity" of Germans.

"NPD is a party that wants to win people, not shock them," said Leichsenring, whose office in the Saxon capital, Dresden, looks over blackened buildings restored after the Allied bombing of World War II. "Many people are quietly sympathizing with us because they can't publicly support us. We get a lot of faxes of support. If we had freedom of opinion in our country, and the political establishment wasn't trying to destroy us, the ranks of our party would swell."