"They call us Nazis' The town where right is on rise

Rallies in Kaufbeuren show split between AfD supporters and locals who acknowledge Bavarian district's grim past

- Deborah Cole

Soaring church spires, the 1,000-year-old town centre unblemished by second world war bombing or graffiti, snowcapped Alps in the middle distance - Kaufbeuren, in Bavaria, can count many blessings.

Unemployment is in the low single digits, the Luftwaffe backed away from moving away its training school for Eurofighter and Tornado jet technicians and crime is at a historic low.

However, as voters prepare to elect a new European parliament in the coming days, deep-seated fears have gripped a significant share of the electorate in one of the most affluent pockets of Europe's top economy and delivered it to the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

The bond between the party and its voters appears unshaken even by a cascade of recent scandals. The AfD's lead candidate, Maximilian Krah, was forced by his party leadership last Wednesday to resign from its board and stop campaigning after he told Italy's La Repubblica that the SS, the Nazi paramilitary force that ran the death camps, were not all criminals and could only be judged on the basis of "individual guilt".

Krah had already been in the spotlight for suspected Chinese and Russian ties after one of his aides was arrested on charges of spying for China. On the eve of his resignation, he said the allegations were "merely an attempt to distract from our political arguments" and threatened legal action.