"You're as big of an asshole as that idiot Ralf Stegner," a certain Birgit M
recently wrote in a letter to Thomas Kutschaty
justice minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia
It was a referrence to the deputy party leader of state chapter of the Social Democratic Party (SPD)
who recently said the organizers of the weekly Pegida marches in Dresden and elsewhere should be investigated by intelligence services
"You should all be put in a sack and have a hammer taken to you," Birgit M
Then there was the man who called Dorothea Moesch
"We can have you taken out at any time," he was informed in a letter
And in Bernau in the eastern state of Brandenburg
graffiti scrawled on the wall of a warehouse namechecking the local mayor reads
"First Henriette Reker (the mayoral candidate stabbed in Cologne last weekend)
These are but a few examples -- four politicians who have taken a stand
Kutschaty fell into the crosshairs for saying
"Pegida is not about protecting the Western world
attracted ire because she organized a protest against right-wing extremism
Pipa became the target of hatred because he was recently awarded a Federal Cross of Merit
for his longtime lobbying work on behalf of refugees
Stahl was the subject of denigration because of his public declaration that he wants refugees to feel welcome in his city
none of them have scaled back their political work
They all still say it's more important than ever
But since the knife attack against Reker last Saturday on the eve of her election as mayor of Cologne
District administrator Pipa is wondering whether he should take police advice and wear a bullet-proof vest
is a place where people feel entirely uninhibited about expressing their hatred and xenophobia
Images from around the country show a level of brutalization that hasn't been witnessed for some time
and attest to primitive instincts long believed to have been relegated to the past in Germany
The examples are as myriad as they are shocking
and include the bloody attack in Cologne as well as the mock gallows for Angela Merkel and her deputy Sigmar Gabriel carried by a demonstrator at a Pegida rally in Dresden on Oct
But they also include the abuse shouted at the German chancellor when she visited a refugee hostel in Heidenau near Dresden in August
where she was called a "slut" and other insults
or the placards held aloft by demonstrators on the first anniversary of the Pegida rallies listing the supposed "enemies of the German state" -- Merkel
Gabriel and their "accomplices." The lack of inhibition when it comes to vicious tirades took on a whole new scale on Monday
when Turkish-born German author and Pegida supporter Akif Pirincci
said there are other alternatives in the refugee crisis
but "the concentration camps are unfortunately out of action at the moment."
There have been more than twice as many attacks on refugee hostels during the first nine months of this year as in the whole of 2014
The rising tide of hatred is now reaching the politicians many hold responsible for the perceived chaos besetting Germany
The national headquarters of Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party in Berlin fields thousands of hate mails every week
As the architect of the "we can do it" policy of allowing masses of refugees into the country
They're going to be needed," read one recent anonymous mail addressed to her
It's expressed on the streets and on the Internet
It eminates from every class and every section of society
According to studies conducted by Andreas Zick
the respected head of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence at the University of Bielefeld
who has been researching German prejudices against different groups for many years
almost 50 percent of Germans harbor misanthropic views
Zick warns of a shift in norms that will be difficult to get back under control
Politicians need to find a way of dealing with rampant hatred
Dialogue and compromise -- the bedrock of Germany's culture of debate -- no longer appears to be working at the moment
It's hard to get through to people who have been consumed with a hysterical degree of hatred
The country's security agencies also need to take a decisive stance
Are they once again being too slow in monitoring and clamping down on this new radical scene
Germany's domestic intelligence agency is not keeping tabs on Pegida
police and public prosecutors do have the tools to take action to squash troublemakers
It has to decide how indifferent to politics it can afford to be and how far voter turnout can fall -- it reached a record low in Sunday's mayoral elections in Cologne
it has to decide how much room for manoeuver it is willing to grant far-right firebrands
as evidenced not only by the attack on Henriette Reker
Politicians across Germany are reporting a rise in the number of serious threats issued against them
Dorothea Moesch is used to being the butt of hostility
she opened a home in the district of Westerfilde for needy locals
Volunteers taught German language classes and helped translate letters from the authorities for the residents
Mainly they simply made themselves available
Moesch promoted a "welcoming culture" long before the term was coined
Moesch is all too familiar with discrimination
after registering a demonstration against the far-right
she received an anonymous call on her mobile phone
just like all the other cunts," said a male voice
"You can't shrug that sort of thing off," she says
Sebastian Koch is the Social Democrat mayor of Wenzenbach near Regensburg in Bavaria
He's accused of pandering to asylum-seekers and regularly gets told he should deport himself to Syria
He drew criticism for berating a man who rents out refugee accommodations for leaving furniture and stoves broken and exposed electrical wiring dangling off walls
He also complained about the way refugee children had to take trains and buses from Wenzenbach to get to school
arguing that it was too much to ask of kids their age who couldn't speak German
A letter subsequently reached the town hall saying that what the refugee children needed wasn't a train to school but to a concentration camp
has launched an investigation to ascertain if this amounts to incitement to hatred
and police regularly patrol the area around the refugee home
"But these expressions of hatred got to me and unnerved me."
Exposure to such anger on the part of the people
Facebook postings and physical attacks like the one in Cologne and through the hateful epithets of the type being volleyed against them in Dresden is a new experience for most politicians
a sociology professor at the University of Kassel
describes the Pegida movement as a "communications-free high-pressure chamber." "The people who go to Pegida have the feeling their problems are existential
but they feel there's no one they can turn to
That reinforces the feeling that politicians aren't facing up to reality." Based on his surveys
he says the potential for the number of people who could feel degraded in this way is 25 percent
Groups on the far-right spectrum discovered long ago the potential of frustrated people
the people behind the German blog Politically Incorrect (PI)
the same year the Dutch film director and Islam critic Theo van Gogh was murdered
have long pursued their goal of discrediting people they deem to be "Islam sympathizers" or "do-gooders" using all means conceivable
So it makes perfect sense that those behind Politically Incorrect have joined forces in recent years with similar people sharing their views to form a right-wing network that includes groups like the Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa (the Pax Europa Citizens' Movement)
the German Defense League and the Bürgerbewegung Pro Deutschland (Pro Germany Citizens' Movement)
they have been trying to push their political views from the margins into the mainstream
and this is where Pegida's role comes into play
Just one example of the extent with which Politically Incorrect's thought leaders and followers are working closely together with Pegida is Michael Stürzenberger
he's also the chairman of the far-right extremist party Die Freiheit (The Freedom) and appears regularly as a speaker at Pegida events
In the city of Duisburg in western Germany this summer
he told the crowd how a young woman had almost been raped by three asylum-seekers in Miesbach
Stüzenberger said he received news like this every day
"Do you really want for our women to no longer be able to walk on the streets at night without worrying?" he shouted into the microphone
What Stürzenberger didn't tell his audience
was that police announced shortly after the alleged incident that the woman had fabricated her story
Platforms like Politically Incorrect have long cultivated this form of agitation
and Pegida is now bringing it into the town squares of Germany's cities
bringing the virtual and analog worlds together and making the hatred tangible
"Pegida is a grassroots movement," says Jürgen Elsässer
"It's perhaps the last chance we have left to save our people." Elsässer is a former teacher and member of the now defunct Communist League in West Germany
who may have once written for prominent far-left publications but is now a popular speaker at Pegida events
he continues to lash out at the "imperialism" imposed by the Americans and calls for "resistance against the international financial capital and its warmongers in Washington
London and Jerusalem." Writing on his blog in September
to occupy stations along the German borders in order to stop the flow of refugees
"Don't wait for orders from above." In his magazine Compact
Elsässer currently features an image of Angela Merkel with the headline
Elsässer is one of the people shaping Pegida's political views
He's also illustrative of how perfidious far-right intellectuals are when it comes to the issue of violence
Elsässer distanced himself from the attack on the Cologne mayoral candidate
He also rejects the use of the gallows as a symbol
let this absolutely misleading nonsense be," he wrote
he also posted an interview with the man who carried the gallows at a recent Pegida march in Dresden on his magazine's website
with a platform to state that the gallows for Merkel and Gabriel was intended as "satire." The teaser for the video states that the "courageous man" is now going tell his story
which will give you "goose bumps." The idea of heroification while at the same time feigning distance is one of the hallmarks of the new culture of hate
Elsässer is expected to give another speech in November
this time at the invitation of the so-called Institute for State Policy
which is housed in a manor in Schnellroda in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt
The organization's co-founder was Götz Kubitschek
who studied at university to become a teacher and was forced to leave his position as a first lieutenant in the Bundeswehr in 2001 after participating in "right-wing extremist endeavors." 
Kubitschek spoke to protesters gathered at Dresden's Neumarkt square
where he called for civil disobedience and propagated the alleged right to resist
"It's good that things are starting to escalate!" he told the audience
Kubitschek enjoys moments like that because they show him that theory can also be turned into practice
he spent years mulling what could be learned from the leftists when it comes to the battle for minds
He invited people in Internet forums to conceive original and provocative forms of agitation
In one form of "conservative-subversive action," he and other activists gatecrashed left-wing events like a 2008 reading by Günter Grass
He discussed which issues would be well suited for making neo-fascistic ideas palatable to the masses
And how normal people could be convinced to accept breaches of the law or misdemeanors in the pursuit of them
How could the right-wing prevail over the "cultural hegemony?" In Pegida
Kubitschek has finally found precisely the type of agitation he had long been searching for
Experts like political scientist Armin Pfahl-Traughber of the German government's Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences categorize Kubitschek's movement as right-wing extremist
they are striving for a recasting of the Conservative Movement during the Weimar Republic that had positioned itself clearly against the democratic
constitutional state," says Pfahl-Traughber
he says he has also observed "increasingly martial language" among its leaders and followers
a friend of the right-wing extremist revolutionary appeared on Germany's leading talk show
What was most conspicuous about his appearance on Günther Jauch's show was that
he hung a German flag from the right armrest of his chair
is a former physical education and history teacher at schools in the western state of Hesse
Now he's the head of the state chapter of the Alternative for Germany (AFD) party in the eastern state of Thuringia
Höcke has maintained an interest in the ideologies of the new right for many years
Höcke is also leading protest marches against the "stream of refugees," like one that took place on Wednesday in the eastern city of Erfurt
Höcke sought to portray himself as a victim of the "lying press" -- the term being used by the far-right these days to disparage the media -- the last true patriot standing in a society that has otherwise been blinded
Höcke said he didn't bring the flag from the talk show because someone told him he should take good care of it given that it might wind up exhibited in a history museum someday
It's exactly the kind of thing he likes to hear
he apparently already seems to view himself as the history-making leader of a new movement
It appears that the AFD party's national leader Frauke Petry is wising up to this as well
She cancelled her scheduled appearance at the Erfurt demonstration
The way in which the party deals with Höcke is proving to be an acid test for leaders of AFD
which has grown increasingly populist in tone since its creation in 2013
AFD's deputy leader Alexander Gauland may view him as a "legitimate voice in the AFD choir," but Petry would prefer to neutralize far-right outsider Höcke
"He doesn't speak for the national party," she recently clarified in a letter to party members that has also created pressure for her
This letter was not agreed to by the executive committee and isn't supported by me," Gauland says
Petry's desire to distance the party from the far-right and anchor it firmly in mainstream society will be very difficult to fulfill so long as Höcke
continues with his bluster about the "thousand-year Reich." Björn Höcke's version of AFD is precariously close to the organized right-wing extremism of the neo-Nazis
He even openly admits to having ties to Thorsten Heise
a leading figure in the National Democratic Party (NPD)
which the German government sought to ban in the past because of its xenophobic and anti-Semitic positions
Höcke's friend Kubitschek was keen to join AFD
but the party leadership refused to let him in
Höcke continues to consolidate his links with the Pegida movement
saying he would like to see his party work with it "much more closely" -- and also with Germany's new far-right intellectuals
Höcke will be speaking at the fall conference in Schnellroda hosted by Götz Kubitschek in what is expected to be a summit of the far-right's masterminds
Even as the organized far-right is exploiting public unease about the refugee crisis and frustrated citizens are venting their anger in hate mails
the authorities' response has been astonishingly weak
Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière might describe Pegida's leaders as "hard-core right-wing extremists" but the domestic intelligence service he oversees states that it isn't even monitoring the movement -- so far
there has been insufficient reason to do so
president of Saxony branch of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution
also seems reluctant to take on the increasingly radical movement
because the argument that it is harmless has so far prevailed
Its organizers distanced themselves from violence
"People held up pictures of Merkel in an SA uniform at the demonstrations," says Meyer-Plath
"Real neo-Nazis would never do that." So far
it's a "populist far-right movement rooted in anger but not a threat to German's freedom and democracy."
"We cannot label every anti-asylum-seeker protest as being far-right," he says
But intelligence services in other states beg to differ
Düsseldorf and Thuringia are officially being watched
with authorities concluding that the majority of organizers and speakers belong to the far-right scene
The authorities were even stymied by the blog Politically Incorrect
deciding that although it propagates anti-Islamic and often racist propaganda
"it does not use typical far-right argumentation" -- as the authorities put it in response to an inquiry from the Left Party
The authors of the blog have so far managed to out-manoeuver the authorities by using two simple tricks
its stance is overtly pro-American and pro-Israeli
which appears to confuse the German bureaucrats
who assume that to be a neo-Nazi is to be anti-Semitic
the most egregious expressions of vitriol appear in the comments
for which the blog's authors cannot be held responsible
the Bavarian intelligence service became the first to start observing PI
a move prompted by the blog's industrious Munich chapter
headed up by the rabidly anti-Islamic Michael Stürzenberger
The authorities were completely unprepared for the knife attack on Henriette Reker
even though the 44-year-old suspect Frank S.
an unemployed painter and decorator from Cologne
had long been a neo-Nazi sympathizer and first become active in the far-right scene in Bonn at the age of 18
he was sighted at a memorial march for leading Nazi Rudolf Hess in Fulda; and
he was involved in aborted plans for a similar march in Luxembourg to mark the anniversary of Hess' death
He also appears in domestic intelligence files as one of government informant Norbert W.'s assets
was regional manager of the Free German Workers' Party (FAP)
a neo-Nazi political association outlawed by the Constitutional Court in 1995
began to attract attention with a series of violent outbreaks
He beat up a man wearing red shoelaces because he thought he was an anti-fascist activist
He threw a beer bottle during a fight in a disco
he had twice been convicted of causing bodily harm and once of extortion
He briefly returned to the radar in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2008 when he appeared to look into joining the NPD
The intelligence services were unaware that he contemplated suicide three months ago -- as he revealed after his attack on Reker
Nor were they aware of his meticulous planning ahead of it
The domestic intelligence services' fight to stop spiraling aggression is one thing
Society and politics' answer to the public hatred
Is it still possible to have a conversation with people who send politicians hate mail and death threats
Justice Minister Heiko Maas doesn't think so
His Facebook page regularly overflows with abuse
He was one of the first leading German politicians to deem Pegida a German disgrace
Now trolls -- who even give their names -- leave messages for him on Facebook such as "Heiko
your time's soon up" and "shut your face or I'm coming for you!" The Justice Ministry passes on a handful of death threats to the Federal Criminal Police Office every week
"We've reached a point where certain things need to be spelled out," he says
He proposes that anyone participating in a demonstration should be made to account for the aims and the organizers of the rally
"It's too easy for people to just go along with it," he says
SPD General Secretary Yasmin Fahimi has also had enough of the far-right talk of recent months
"It is not the job of politicians to counsel these people," she says
"We're talking about rabble rousers and firebrands who are issuing death threats
They've turned away from the Constitution and towards extremism." She points out that they are also the sort of extremists who accept authority and that it therefore makes sense to show them "the strong arm of the law." This
public prosecutors and courts to play their part
She would also like to see associations and employers reacting to rabble rousers and anyone who expresses xenophobic opinions by withdrawing membership
Psychologist Andreas Zick also urges politicians to take a tougher line on far-right populists
"We need to see racist violence in Germany for what it is," he says
is a former physical education and history teacher from the western state of Hesse
Now he is the head of the state chapter of the Alternative for Germany (AFD) party in the eastern state of Thuringia
The party's deputy leader Alexander Gauland views him as a "legitimate voice in the AFD choir," but its leader Frauke Petry is less keen
"He doesn't speak for the national party," she says
The organized far-right is exploiting public unease about the refugee crisis
with recent weeks seeing a resurgence of the islamophobic
Demonstrators are pictured here in Dresden on Monday night
A sign reads: "To Merkel and Co.: How many ISIS members and terrorists are to be found in the 1.5 million pseudo asylum-seekers?"
Götz Kubitschek studied at university to become a teacher and was forced to leave his position as a first lieutenant in the Bundeswehr in 2001 after participating in "right-wing extremist endeavors." In Pegida
he has found precisely the type of agitation he has long been searching for
SPD politician Erich Pipa was recently awarded a Federal Cross of Merit for his long-term lobby work on behalf of refugees
He's now the butt of far-right death threats
A mock gallows with nooses attached to signs indicating they were reserved for Merkel and Gabriel was sighted at a Pegida march in Dresden earlier this month
German prosecutors subsequently opened an investigation
"Wanted because of hypocrisy," reads this banner showing manipulated images of German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel and President Joachim Gauck
demonstrators marked the first anniversary of the Pegida rallies in Dresden
leading to fears the movement is experiencing a second wind