There were 11,928 such incidents during the first ten months of 2008, compared with 9,206 in the same period the year before. The number of violent attacks went up 15 percent to 639, while anti-semitic incidents rose from 716 to 797.

Meanwhile a survey by the Friedrich-Ebert Institute suggested that 20 percent of Germans are openly prejudiced against foreigners. In the former East Germany the ratio is one in three, the institute claimed.

Right-wing extremism in Germany recaptured media attention this month when a police chief was stabbed by a suspected neo-Nazi in the Bavarian town of Passau. So far, no solid leads have been uncovered, though several people with neo-Nazi sympathies in Passau have been questioned.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said that attacks by neo-Nazis represent a danger to all Germans. In the wake of the stabbing in Passau, more and more politicians have called for a ban on the National Democratic Party (NPD), the most prominent of the legal far-right parties in Germany.