Rock Raids

It is called, obscurely, oi music. A better name might be Swasrock: an ugly subgenre influenced by punk and heavy metal -- but glorifying such far-right symbols as the Nazi swastika. The music, played by some 50 bands, provides a bond for Germany's neo-Nazi movement, a suspected source for much of the xenophobic violence that has claimed 17 lives in the past year. In a swift crackdown, German police raided studios, homes and offices, confiscating thousands of records and CDs. Whether anti-Nazi laws were broken remained unclear, since the operation produced no arrests.