The Circle of Hate Widens

"IT IS BURNING IN THE RATZEBURGER STREET. HEIL Hitler." In a 12:30 a.m. call to the police in the small German town of Molln, those words announced the single worst attack on foreigners to date -- one that killed a Turkish grandmother and two Turkish girls and injured nine other people.

The incident -- the latest in a year that has seen 1,800 acts of xenophobia -- was horrifying, both in its own right and as a harbinger of things to come. Since the attack was directed against Turkish resident workers, more than 1.7 million of whom currently live in Germany, it stoked fears that the far right was lengthening its list of enemies beyond asylum seekers.

The arson in Molln elicited more calls for stiffer laws and sharper penalties, and at week's end, Germany officially banned the far-right Nationalistic Front. German federal prosecutor Alexander von Stahl took charge of the case, marking the first instance in which he has assumed responsibility for an investigation of far-right violence. The use of the Hitler salute on the phone, said Von Stahl in explaining his involvement, "indicates that the unidentified criminals wanted to use their crime to help restore a Nazi dictatorship in Germany."