Over the past several years, sleepy, provincial Thuringia—with a population of just around two million—had become a neo-Nazi hotbed, supplying steady funds and publicity for Europe’s resurgent far right.
Two years ago, Themar, the town where we were headed, had drawn around 6,000 far-right music fans—roughly double the town’s population—to the “Rock gegen Überfremdung,” or, roughly, the “Rock against Over-foreignization.” Images of hundreds of men and women flashing “Sieg Heil” salutes, illegal in Germany, had circulated on social media, shocking polite society.