Source: BBC

To watch the footage that emerged from Clausnitz last week is to catch a glimpse of so-called “dark Germany”.

It is not often such events are captured on film.

The images of terrified refugees on a bus surrounded by a baying crowd have provoked revulsion and soul searching.

So has the news that, in the nearby town of Bautzen, people cheered and clapped as a refugee shelter went up in flames after a suspected arson attack.

Germany’s justice minister Heiko Maas spoke for many when he described those responsible as “abhorrent and disgusting”.

Attacks on Germany’s refugee shelters are increasingly common.

Government statistics reveal that last year there were about 1,000 such attacks, five times the number reported in 2014.

Just a few weeks ago a hand grenade was thrown into the grounds of a shelter. The pin had been pulled but the device did not explode.

Image copyrightAP

Many wonder why most of these crimes are perpetrated in what was formerly East Germany.

Some accuse the local government of turning a blind eye to racism and right wing extremism.

Others point to East German history.

“Those who had to survive so many changes in the past 25 years are obviously less stable in their democratic and moral convictions,” said former Speaker of the German parliament, Wolfgang Thierse.

But bear in mind the state of Saxony has one of the least ethnically diverse populations in the country.

The people who arrived in Clausnitz last week were the first refugees to arrive in the village at all. This, argue many, is simply fear of the unknown.

There are those who say that such violence represents the extreme edge of what some say is a growing anti-refugee sentiment.

Germany took in more than a million refugees and migrants last year. And they are still coming: more than 90.000 arrived in January this year.

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