As an american who lives in Germany, this couldn't be farther than the truth from anything that I have seen. I have seen much more racism and bigotry in my homeland than anything from the west to the former east. There exist bad elements in all societies; what I have seen is that German society as a whole has learned and tried to better themselves from the atrocities of their past - while it is unfortunately still strong in America.

My best friends come from the "neo nazi" working class hotbeds of Leipzig and Dresden. I have never ever seen anything like you mention, ever.

Roughly the same percentage of people vote for Nazis in Germany as polls say would vote for white supremacists in the United States - a pretty small amount, though the similarity in percentages does call into question the effectiveness of limits on speech.

>What I have heard from Germans is that it's pretty easy to be a neo-Nazi and convey neo-Nazi ideas in Germany, you just have to not use Nazi symbols. Don't call yourself a Nazi, just mumble something about patriotism and history, and don't use the swastika, and the government won't do anything.

In other words, Germany's laws are dumb, because they don't actually slow down neo-Nazis and simply criminalize people for using pictures.

> and the government won't do anything

Actually, chances are that the government funds you.

I don't have a source at hand right now, but I recall reports that the NPD (the German nationalist party) would have gone bankrupt many times over if it weren't for a substantial number of its members being recruited by the domestic intelligence service as confidential informants, who then donated their informant salaries (or parts thereof) to the party.