GETTY A bizarre clog-wearing Neo-Nazi movement is beginning to gain popularity in rural Germany

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The group, calling themselves "nationalist settlers", are ultra-right Hitler worshippers but they have traded skinhead boots for clogs and traditional materials and work as organic farmers, midwives and craftsmen. Despite appearing bonkers however their rise is being taken very seriously. A human rights watchdog group funded by the German interior ministry produced a study called 'Nationalist Settlers in Rural Areas'. Researchers concluded they believe wholeheartedly in the whole Nazi racist superman claptrap and are worming their way into local positions of power as councillors, volunteer firemen, teachers and festival organisers. Anne Schmidt, author of the study for the Amadeu Antonio Foundation said: "This is a very scary movement to observe. These extremely nationalist right wing people are settling specifically in little-populated areas, far away from cities to live and raise their children in a backward ideology.

GETTY Anti-Islamic sentiment is also on the rise in Germany

"Their view of the world goes back to the racist anti-Semitic thought of the folk movement of the beginning of the 20th century in which there was no place for openness to the world and the diversity of life. "They subvert village structures and spread Nazi propaganda over the garden fence." Barbara Karsten and her partner Knut Jahn are a couple marooned in a small village surrounded by neo-Nazis. They moved to Wibbese in Lower Saxony and were delighted at the seeming friendliness of neighbours. Barbara said: "They brought us over eggs and goat's milk. But soon we became suspicious. "The man with a tattoo of an imperial eagle, the man who wore a Nazi helmet when riding his motorbike." Mr Jahn added: "Our neighbours were widely accepted as good and helpful citizens and could spread almost undisturbed their supermen propaganda."

GETTY A 1932 Nazi rally in Germany

When they tried to point out the dangerous ideologies spread by some of them they were branded as "nest despoilers." Jahn said: "A neo Nazi bought the house next door to us and now we are surrounded and fear there are more to come. We don't want our children and grandchildren to grow up with the ghosts of the Nazis." Another place that has given itself over to the dark side is Jamal, 80 miles north-east from Berlin, where every home bar one is owned by a neo-Nazi. They hold pagan festivals around bonfires, sing songs banned since the fall of the Third Reich and cluster around a signpost that informs the visitor just how far away Braunau-am-Inn is; the Austrian birthplace of their beloved Adolf Hitler. There was also, until recently, a barbecue outside the home of one resident with the words 'Happy Holocaust!' painted on the side. Horst Lohmeyer, a left-leaning artist with a beard and a lisp, and his wife Birgit, are the Mr. and Mrs. Davy Crockett in their Alamo home in Jamal surrounded by the far-right radicals. They came a decade ago, seeking to escape the rat race in busy Hamburg 65 miles distant, moving for what they hoped would be a life of "rural bliss." Then they discovered they were moving next to the neighbours from hell.

GETTY A recent Neo-Nazi rally in Frankfurt, Germany saw more than 500 take part