Most Germans hate or disregard the NPD. But the question of national identity flows under everyday politics in Germany, and warning about (not-very-numerous) outsiders is a safe way to win votes for politicians from across the ideological spectrum. The party that threatens to win parliamentary seats this fall from Berlin's ruling elite is a new far-left outfit called simply "the Left Party," and its leaders have also made anti-immigrant noises. Oskar Lafontaine, one of its founders, said in a speech in June, "In my opinion only people who take part in German society are German." Angela Merkel, the conservative leader considered a strong possibility to beat Gerhard Schröder in the fall, is also popular in part because she's against Turkish accession to the European Union.

"I have a German passport, but I'm still a foreigner," said Aynur Aktürk, a 40-year-old woman with hay-colored hair who moved to Berlin from Turkey as a teenager and now has two German-born kids. She spoke over lunch at a Turkish street fair this summer in Berlin. "My husband and I have jobs, we're lucky. But if we lose our jobs, I don't know what will happen. Germany is my home now, but it could change." She hesitated. "Germany could change again. The people aren't happy."

At the rally in Gera, I asked a pregnant woman pushing a stroller across the grass why she liked the NPD. Two young boys crawled at her feet. She looked like a young mother from Northern California: socks in sandals, a loose green maternity shirt, pale gentle eyes, and dirty-blond hair tied back with a scrunchie. "Because they stand for family. And for Germany. And because I won't vote for any of the established parties," she said with a slight smile, as if voting for Angela Merkel or Gerhard Schröder were absurd. "They put up with too much corruption."

Her stout-bellied husband, wearing shorts and a plaid shirt, hurried up. Journalists weren't welcome at the rally. He said, "I don't think we should give our names. We don't know what will happen. We don't live in such a free country."

This was the surprise of the afternoon, that NPD supporters at the concert believed they were free spirits, that their police-enclosed cauldron of racial pride was the only place where "true Germans" could express themselves. Freedom became a theme of Udo Voigt's speech. He mounted the stage between black columns of concert speakers and spoke with his sleeves rolled up, like a man with work to do. "Kameraden," he said, "democracy means rule of the people, democracy means freedom, and if you're afraid of [banned] songs, if you're afraid of lyrics -- then what are you afraid of? You're afraid of the people! And I say, the politicians in Berlin should be afraid ..."

But as he talked about freedom, a woman with loose hippyish hair wove through the crowd with a video camera. A man followed her, holding a cardboard sign: "Andrea Röpke, anti-fascist." She was a well-known journalist. People quit listening to Voigt and trotted over to the sign. Röpke had to keep moving. But wherever she went, the sign followed, and the flow of people around the park was like a school of hungry fish. The scene looked no different from a witch hunt.

"As for all you scribblers," Voigt went on, "who lie about us in the press: You should write this down. We don't want a multicultural society! We know what that brings! In Berlin we've learned about the first school without a single German child. Should this be the future of Germany?"

Next to me was a couple enthusiastically listening to the speech. The man was middle-aged but youthful, with prematurely gray hair and a camouflage soldier's cap, an Army-green T-shirt, and boots. His young wife had dyed strawberry blond hair and freckles dusted with makeup.

The man looked at me. "He means you," he said. "You should write this down."

"Anyone who wants this to be the future of Germany," hollered Voigt, "should vote for the established parties! Whoever doesn't want this to be the future of Germany should send the NPD to the national parliament!"

"Write that down!" said the man.

"It's the truth," said his wife.

"We need, in Germany, at last, a true national politics," said Voigt. "We have a dream -- that the Federal Republic of Germany should go into the dustbin of history, as quickly as possible, just like the GDR. That's our dream. We dream of a free and prosperous and peaceful Germany for true Germans ... We have the blood of our fathers flowing in our veins and we are proud!"

The crowd cheered, and the man in the camouflage cap smiled at me as if I'd been taught some sort of lesson.

"Good speech," said his wife.

The state of Thüringia, by the way, is about 98 percent German. The NPD does well in states with the smallest foreign populations. The party isn't popular in semi-integrated Berlin, where an NPD march was thwarted last May by thousands of regular citizens. "But in the long run," says Herzinger, "they have potential. They're determined, they're organized, and they have an influence on young voters that's horrifying. We're now dealing with a mini-NSDAP, comparable to the party of the 1920s. Which people back then didn't take seriously, either."

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