Alex Grimm / Bongarts via Getty Images Israeli flags are held up by fans of the German soccer team Kaiserslautern to protest against anti-Semitism before the Bundesliga fit between Hamilton Academical Kaiserslautern and VfL Wolfsburg in March a year ago. By Mark Snyder, NBC News Special Correspondent Almost seven years following the Holocaust, young soccer fans in Germany are becoming targets of neo-Nazis who preach the hatred of Adolf Hitleras Third Reich. aAgain and again we see neo-Nazi presence in [sports] fan clubs and my company asks that action be taken against them,a explained Winfriede Schreiber, head of the Brandenburg branch of the German governmentas intelligence service. aFor case, we see the lover club in [the German city] Cottbus consisting of a lot of neo-Nazis. We asked the football club to do some thing about this.a At her office in Brandenburg, a situation in western Germany, Schreiber monitors extremism and reports proof of hate crimes to prosecutors. aThe neo-Nazis now seem like everyone else,a Schreiber said. aGone are the jackboots and black leather jackets that used to create it simple to expose them. Now they blend into the local population.a Based on Schreiber, the neo-Nazis sign up for Hitleras views and celebrate his one-time deputy, Rudolf Hess. aThe chance the neo-Nazis pose is that they're against democracy and they work to alienate teenagers from democracy,a she said. aThey have built aJudena [Jews] a curse word even though there are no Jews playing on the soccer field.a Jens Teschke, a spokesman for Germany's inside ministry, which is responsible for domestic security, said neo-Nazi activities are visible throughout Germany, but strongest in the country's east. Young soccer fans are taken by aneo-nazis to domiciles built in the Nazi times as trip retreats for elite members of Hitleras party,a Teschke said. aThey laud the Nazi era and the legacy with this era.a Based on Teschke, programs were launched by the German government in January 2011 to make football instructors more alert to neo-Nazi methods. The problem is maybe not limited by Germany. In England, fans of London-based Tottenham Hotspur -- which boasts a strong Jewish following -- have already been afflicted by anti-Semitic abuse for many years. In November, supporters of West Ham United "hissed on a few occasions, mocking the mass execution of Jews during the Second World War," the U.K.'s Telegraph newspaper reported. "While the hissing, shamefully, is nothing new, Tottenham supporters were also put through a of 'Adolf Hitler, he is coming for you.'" Each time a mob all the way to 50 masked men armed with knives and baseball bats attacked Tottenham Hotspur fansAbefore a League match in Rome only days earlier, an American college student endured a stab wound and a punctured lung. Witnesses told local media that the attackers shouted "Jews, Jews" as siege was laid by them to the bar. "The coordinated assault... appears to have been inspired at least in part by anti-Semitism," the Telegraph reported. The Simon Wiesenthal Center also recently highlighted the issue's progress. "The dilemma of anti-Semitic punishment at football matches which untilArecently has been limited by Eastern Europe, has been improved in Western Europe," it said in a study. Primary targets of anti-Semitism on the baseball field are the Makkabi clubs, Jewish athletic groups situated in 15 German cities. aEvery Makkabi group in Germany is confronted with anti-Semitism, as are groups with Jewish roots,a explained Deidre Berger, manager of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Berlin, an advocacy group. Soccer instructor Claudio Oppenberg, who is Jewish, said his staff also faced anti-Semitism from Muslim immigrants. According to Oppenberg, whoas trained Tus Makkabi Berlin for seven years, only two members of the existing team are Jewish. The others are from North Africa and Turkey. Throughout a game last March, Oppenberg mentioned are you able to perform for these damned Jews?a members of a Turkish team shouted at fellow Turks on the Makkabi team: aHow The Turkish team beat the Makkabis 1-0. Oppenberg said the Turkish instructor confronted him after the game and said: aWe f---d you Jews.a Oppenberg submitted costs with the German Football Federation and the Turkish instructor was stopped for a year. aIf you've racism and anti-Semitism in society, then you will have it in basketball too,a said Alex Feuerherdt, a soccer referee and freelance writer. Mark Snyder, a veteran NBC News producer for over 25 years, is a special correspondent for NBCNews.com. Related: Hatred boils over in Israeli soccer Holocaust repository saves dropped details, reunites family after years A retired teacher's brave crusade: Tackling neo-Nazi hate
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