Germany-Crime-Neo-Nazi
Neo-Nazi criminal offenses in Germany have reached a new six-year high in March, the press quoted the government as saying Saturday.

Police registered 1,311 far-right criminal acts in March, compared to 853 and 188 during the same corresponding period in 2007 and 2002, the Interior Ministry announced following an official inquiry by the radical leftist The Left (Linke) party.

The latest statistics reveal also a high degree of belligerency by Germany's neo-Nazi scene over the first three months of this year, as police reported 3,364 criminal offenses during that time span.

Meanwhile, the number of victims of neo-Nazi violent acts stood at 211 during the first quarter of the year, compared to 158 in 2007.

Germany has been the scene of vicious xenophobic and racial attacks in recent months.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has repeatedly warned of a growing far-right problem in his country.

He has pointed to the far-right problem as a 'steadily growing danger'.

Schaeuble has also voiced concern that the number of far-right crimes between 2005 and 2006 rose from 15,000 to 18,000 offenses, indicating a 9.3 percent increase.

Meanwhile, the number of anti-foreigner attacks hovered at 511 in 2006, showing a 37 percent rise from the previous year.

Political observers link the dramatic rise in the number of far-right crimes to the recent success of neo-Nazi parties in key regional elections in several east German states.

Young neo-Nazis feel more and more emboldened to commit hate crimes, knowing that police won't charge them with an offense.

Most of the suspects implicated in far-right crimes are juveniles.

Hate crime experts and sociologists have repeatedly stressed that Germany's political leadership lacks a clear and effective strategy to fight neo-Nazi crimes in the wake of a series of brutal racial attacks against foreigners over the past months.