The popularity of the ultra-right NPD in Eastern Germany

Eric Gujer, the newspaper's correspondent in Germany, suggests that "the extreme-right NPD is capitalising from the democratic parties' lack of a distinctive profile in the Eastern German state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania." He goes on to describe the NPD's strategies. "The party has two faces within its strongholds: it puts on a respectable semblance but is backed by neo-Nazi groups... Michael Andrejewski, the NPD's candidate in its stronghold town of Anklam, originally comes from Baden-Württemberg, while the party's leading candidate comes from Lower Saxony…They belong to the class of NPD members who grew up in West Germany, have plenty of experience in politics, adopt a respectable pose and have found a new area of activity in Eastern Germany. These party functionaries are backed by neo-Nazi groups that call themselves 'comradeships'... The leaders of the neo-Nazis also often come from West Germany. The party recruits its rank and file, mostly poorly qualified young men with little prospect of getting a decent job, in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania."

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