BERLIN – Germans are world-famous for their efficiency, a stereotype both mocked and admired by their economically ailing European neighbors.

But this hard-won reputation is now under threat after a catalog of calamities affecting major construction projects.

Perhaps worst of all is what should already be the main airport for the capital, Berlin, which has been dubbed the “eternal” construction site by the U.K.-based Economist magazine and a “fiasco” by French newspaper Le Figaro.

Udo Steffens, president of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, noted sadly that the international press had been asking, “What is it about Germany, this very efficient and effective economic power, are they not able to build a simple airport?"

It was supposed to open in October 2011 but is now not expected to be finished until 2014 at the earliest. Some staff who were hired for the opening have already been laid off.

Markus Schreiber / AP

A fence shields the main terminal of the unfinished Willy Brandt Airport near Berlin. It was supposed to have opened in late 2011 but now isn't expected to open until at least 2014 -- the cost having doubled to nearly $6 billion.

Then there’s Hamburg’s billion-dollar concert hall, ten times over budget and expected to open seven years late in 2017.

And in Stuttgart, angry protests over the demolition of the old train station to make way for a new one put officials into a costly spin.

They went back to the planning table, but after much discussion came back with a final design that was more expensive and much the same, according to a planning expert.

Germans are starting to worry they are becoming something of a laughingstock, with the airport’s woes the chief embarrassment.

"The entire republic, if not the entire world, is joking about the Berlin airport delay," said Ramona Pop, a Green Party leader in Berlin.

The cost of the Willy Brandt Airport -- named after the former German chancellor and Nobel Peace Prize winner -- has more than doubled to nearly $6 billion. The head of Brandt’s foundation has complained that the great man’s name “shouldn't be associated with the planning errors.”

It was supposed to have opened in late 2011 to cater for 30 million passengers a year, but today its visitors are mostly construction inspectors and safety experts.

The new terminal is up and the runway is being used by budget airlines from nearby Schönefeld Airport.

However, the fire protection system was installed incorrectly and there has been concern about an apparent shortage of check-in counters.

Additionally, a court has questioned the safety of future flight routes that pass over a nuclear reactor, while another ruled the "noise protection is insufficient."

The delays are hurting the 150 shops and restaurants that were supposed to open in the terminal.

"Our store interior, worth approximately $70,000, is fully in place at the terminal and collecting dust," said Markus Heckhausen, general manager of lifestyle store Ampelmann.

"We constantly renew our designs and in three to four years, the store furniture will probably be out of date," he added.

Gregor Klaessig invested $550,000 in his Fish&Chips restaurant, hired staff and purchased kitchenware. With no income in sight, the staff had to be laid off.

"I am shocked and have lost all faith in politicians," he said.

As for the concert hall, city officials in 2001 confidently predicted they would build the Elbe Philharmonic by 2010 at a cost of about $105 million.

Euroluftbild / EPA

The illuminated terminal of the Willy Brandt Airport in October 2012. Managers are reportedly spending $6,000 per day on electricity because they are unable to turn off the lights at the facility.

After a series of planning and construction failures, it has turned into a financial sinkhole with an estimated bill of more than $1 billion and a new opening date of 2017.

Stuttgart’s new train station, meanwhile, was supposed to be a major new transportation hub for southwestern Germany.

But when demolition work began on the old station in the fall of 2010, more than 50,000 people demonstrated against the project and dozens were injured when police used water cannons to break up the protest.

Officials’ efforts to handle the uproar were hardly a model of efficiency, according to one expert.

"If you look at what happened in Stuttgart, there was a huge round of mediation and participation, but the final result was the same project with a few modifications and even more expensive than it was before," said Professor Oliver Ibert, a planning expert at Free University Berlin.

But Ibert said the current furor would eventually die down.

"When the airport is open … I'm pretty sure the public discussion will be much calmer than it is today," he said.

After all, few remember that the beautiful Neuschwanstein Castle -- the model for Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland Park, California -- actually bankrupted Bavaria’s King Ludwig II in 1884.

It attracts some 1.3 million visitors a year, although they soon discover it was never actually finished and only a few rooms are decorated.

Related:

Full Germany coverage from NBC News

BERLIN – It is possibly the German capital’s most visible new tourist attraction, but the opening of the bright pink Barbie Dreamhouse Experience was picketed Thursday by women’s groups protesting the “cliché of the female role in society.”

Only a stone's throw from Berlin’s fashionable Alexanderplatz shopping district, a water fountain in the shape of a huge pink high-heeled shoe now welcomes Barbie fans into a whole world of glittery, cerise-colored fun.

But while the city’s toy stores are filled with Barbie merchandise adorned with the slogan “Pink Rocks”, the protest includes a campaign called “Pinkstinks” that objects to “marketing strategies that allocate a limited gender role to young girls.”

The epicenter of doll devotion - only the second of its kind worldwide, after a similar attraction opened earlier this month in Florida -- is an interactive experience for its (mostly) young customers.

Organizers describe it as a “seemingly endless walk-in closet”, a life-size replica of Barbie's fictional Malibu home.

“It provides a completely new insight into the living interior and lifestyle of the most famous doll in the world,” said Christoph Rahofer,  of marketing company EMS which obtained the rights to the attraction from US manufacturer Mattel.

Slideshow: Barbie's Dreamhouse

Jens Kalaene / EPA

A life-sized house offers visitors a chance to tour the famous doll's home and even try on Barbie's clothes in her walk-in closet.

Launch slideshow

Visitors are greeted first by a large painting of Barbie smiling next to her love interest, Ken, then taken on a tour of her home that includes a bedroom and a stylish bathroom where a pink dolphin pops out of the toilet bowl.

Equipped with an electronic bracelet, real-world princesses can bake virtual cupcakes in Barbie's kitchen and listen to "Barbie talk" at touchscreen monitors.

The house is also equipped with a walk-in refrigerator and a huge pink piano playing happy tunes.

Sean Gallup / Getty Images

Protests said they were angry at materialist stereotypes of women.

It’s too much for the taste of some Berliners.

About a dozen activists - including a man in a pink dress and a wig and a sign around his neck that said "Do you like me now?" - gathered in front of the attraction Wednesday.

Other placards read "Barbie is not my baby," "I will free you from the horror house" and "pink stinks."

“This dream world suggests that women can’t be anything less than beautiful and slim,” said Franziska Sedlak from protest group Occupy Barbie Dreamhouse. “And life is not about being beautiful all the time.”

The movement began in March when members of a youth group affiliated to Germany’s far-left party, die Linke, created an Occupy Barbie Dreamhouse Facebook page.

“Our protest is not directed towards little girls and their dreams,” member Michael Koschitzki said. “But, for us, this so-called Dreamhouse symbolizes the beauty craze and the discrimination of women in modern day life. It presents a cliché of the female role in society.”

Demonstrators included  a woman with bare breasts holding a burning cross with "life in plastic is not fantastic" written on her body.

Despite the criticism, the Barbie Dreamhouse Experience is expected to attract up to 3,000 visitors a day.

For her part, Barbie will pack up her enormous shoe and dress collection at the end of August, taking her pink paradise on a tour of other European cities.

Related:

• Photoblog: 'Life in plastic is not fantastic': Germans protest Barbie Dreamhouse
• Barbie's Dreamhouse now life-size reality in Florida
• Full Germany coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Thu May 16, 2013 7:55 AM EDT

German Police via Reuters

Beate Zschaepe, 38, is accused of complicity in the murder of eight ethnic Turks, a Greek and a policewoman, two bombings and 15 bank robberies. She has been described as "Germany's most dangerous neo-Nazi."

MAINZ, Germany -- Dubbed the "Nazi Bride," Beate Zschaepe has become the face of right-wing militancy in Germany.

The 38-year-old woman is allegedly the sole surviving member of the National Socialist Underground, a neo-Nazi terror cell accused of a seven-year racist killing spree.

On Monday, Zschaepe will go on trial accused of complicity in the murder of eight ethnic Turks, a Greek and a policewoman, two bombings and 15 bank robberies. 

But she is alleged to be far more than just the tagalong lover of the far-right gang's leader. 

German federal prosecutor Wolfgang Range alleges that Zschaepe gave the terror cell "the appearance of legality and normalcy towards the outside."

German Police via Reuters

National Socialist Underground member Uwe Boehnhardt was found dead after a bungled armed robbery in November 2011.

Speaking to Der Spiegel magazine, Range added: "I am convinced that she wasn't just an accessory or merely a companion, but was in fact acting on the same level as the others." 

Zschaepe and two alleged accomplices, who took their own lives, have been described by Range as a "unified killing commando" responsible for a series of execution-style murders.

Zschaepe's case will spotlight the increasingly prominent role that women are playing in the neo-Nazi scene. In particular, they have been gaining influence in German far-right politics.

Statistics suggest nearly 20 percent of executives in Germany's extremist NPD party are women, which is a higher percentage than in many smaller mainstream parties.

"Women are increasingly taking center stage in the far-right scene," said Michaela Koettig, a professor for social work at the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt. "They are filling important positions after being fully socialized by the scene."

Up to 40 far-right women's organizations alone have been established since 2000, according to Koettig.

"Like their male comrades, women from the extreme right are also violent and fully politically motivated in their actions," said Koettig, who has been conducting research on far-right extremism for the past 20 years. 

Overall, the German government's domestic intelligence agency estimates that there are more than 22,000 active members in the country's right-wing scene, including 9,800 violent extremists. Statistics on the exact number of female supporters do not exist.

Zschaepe, who has been branded "Germany's most dangerous neo-Nazi," has so far kept silent. Prosecutors hope that she will testify during her trial, which could run for more than a year in Munich.

If found guilty, Zschaepe faces life in prison.

Zschaepe's alleged accomplices, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boenhardt, were found dead following a bungled armed robbery in November 2011.  Zschaepe turned herself in to police three days later.

The German intelligence community came under fire for failing to detect the group and was accused of being blind on the "right eye," suggesting that the agencies had dedicated too much of their attention to left-wing extremism and Islamists instead.

German Police via Reuters

Uwe Mundlos was the third member of the National Socialist Underground, according to German authorities.

Investigators had focused on the victims’ potential links to the local crime scene and to foreign criminal organizations, while neglecting a possible far-right motive in the killings, which occurred between 2000 and 2007.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has publicly apologized to the families of the murder victims.

German officials now warn that right-wing extremists are trying to conceal their true identities in order to gain a foothold in German society.

In its annual report, the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, an intelligence agency in this southern German state, highlighted that neo-Nazi groups are disguising their organizations to recruit new members and spread right-wing ideology.

"We do not see a widespread infiltration into civil society yet, but right-wing groups and the far-right NPD party are investing a lot of time and money to mask their ideology, to set up a facade," said Markus Schaefert, spokesman for the Bavarian intelligence service.

In the city of Fuerth, neo-Nazis this year launched a so-called "citizens' initiative" called "Soziales Fuerth" -- or "social Fuerth" -- which is aimed at creating the image of an organization that cares for the needs and concerns of local residents.

The website prominently displays the face of a young blond-haired child with blue eyes. Its logo features the slogan "out of love for the people and the homeland."

According to the latest intelligence report, these new so-called "social initiatives" are following "the strategy to draw attention to issues on the level of local politics and to present themselves as an electable alternative."

Such groups are turning to social media and sites such as Facebook to mask their ideologies. 

But even more worrying are the groups' strategies to influence young people as early as possible, experts say.

"As there is mounting political and social pressure towards the neo-Nazi scene and the right-wing NPD party, the extremists, who themselves are often parents with young children, are trying to ingrain [themselves] in society," said Winfriede Scheiber, head of the intelligence service in the eastern German state of Brandenburg.

Experts say that neo-Nazis are using community facilities to reach adolescents and young children, seeking to influence their thinking at an early stage in life, or to even recruit them.

"We are worried about the development that moms and dads with right-wing ideologies are increasingly taking up duties in kindergartens, nursing homes or sports clubs," Schreiber added.

Koettig, the social work professor, said such extremists "stay inconspicuous at first and then, once they play a leading role in sports clubs or have become members of their school's parents' association, gradually introduce their ideology."

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related links:

• A retired teacher's courageous campaign: Tackling neo-Nazi hate
• Full Germany coverage from NBC News

LONDON -- British authorities ordered more police on the streets for Sunday's London Marathon in the wake of the Boston bombings, but experts warned it was "virtually impossible" to guarantee the safety of the hundreds of thousands who will attend the event. 

A police source said additional patrols by uniformed officers were planned to reassure the public in the wake of deadly attack.

While British security officials have been in contact with their counterparts in the U.S. following Monday's blasts, the U.K.'s threat level for international terrorism hasn't been changed from "substantial" -- the third of five categories on the scale.

At least 500,000 spectators are expected to watch Sunday’s race and Prince Harry is due to hand medals to the winners.

The course takes the 36,000 runners right past major sites - including Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace – as well as through Canary Wharf, the giant riverside financial district targeted twice by the Irish militants in the 1990s.

Even in a city that has spent recent decades under the threat of bombs – first from Irish Republicans, more recently jihadists – such a public event poses a security headache.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police, said that the force was "taking more more precautions than we might have done otherwise."

"We will make sure we've got more officers on the street looking after people, making sure they're kept safe, but we've no reason to think they'd be any less safe than before the terrible events in Boston,." he said. "We'd be professionally irresponsible if we didn't take some reasonable steps."

Sang Tan / AP

Backdropped by Buckingham Palace, a jogger crosses the Mall in London on Tuesday. It will be transformed into the finishing area for Sunday's London Marathon.

Metropolitan Police Commander Christine Jones declined to give details of what changes might be made, if any, to the event's security plan. She said officers would “continue to review all the intelligence” available.

London Marathon chief executive Nick Bitel insisted the event would go ahead. “We will be reviewing our security in the coming days, in the light of what has happened in Boston," Bitel told ITV News.

"I don't want to talk about specifics of what security we have had in the past, or will have on Sunday. All I can say is that it will be of an appropriate level to meet whatever threat assessment is made, in conjunction with the police," he added.

Hugh Robertson, a British government minister, called for crowds and runners to attend in London as normal.

“The very best way to show solidarity with Boston is to get out there on the streets of London to cheer the runners on and to show that we won’t be defeated by this sort of activity,” he told the London Evening Standard newspaper.

Runners will be encouraged to wear a black ribbon at the start of the race to honor victims of the Boston bombing, and a 30-second silence will be observed, organizers said Wednesday. 

NBC News national security analyst Michael Leiter said it was “virtually impossible” to make a marathon completely secure because of its 26.2-mile long route.

“You just have to do the best you can to keep people safe and maintain resilience," he said. “It’s important we don’t alter our lives because that provides the terrorist – domestic, international, whoever it may be – with a huge victory.”

Helmut Spahn, executive director of the International Centre for Sport Security, told Reuters: "There has to be a clear analysis of the situation and certainly no over-reaction. More police, more military is not always the best solution. To have a 100 percent security is very, very difficult if not near impossible.”

Sang Tan / AP

A sign warns of road closures linked to the forthcoming London Marathon.

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 17, 2013 2:29 AM EDT

Ned Fridrich / NBC News

As cardinals prepare to choose who will be the next pope, posters seen on the streets of Rome appear to implore them to choose Ghanaian cardinal Peter Turkson.

As Roman Catholic cardinals prepare to choose the next pope, political-style campaigning for the position is forbidden. So there were a few raised eyebrows in Rome on Friday, when mysterious posters appeared around the city, apparently in support of Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana.

"Vote Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson” was written on the posters alongside an image of the cardinal, who some say could succeed Pope Benedict XVI, whose papacy formally ended on Thursday night.

If chosen, Turkson would be the first non-European to lead the Catholic Church in more than 1,000 years.

Even informal campaigning to become pope is considered bad form, and openly putting one's name forward is enough to end any cardinal’s chances.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the posters, or even if they are part of a spoof campaign. Insiders say they are unlikely to have been produced with the cardinal’s knowledge.

“You can be absolutely sure that poor Cardinal Turkson, a true innocent, had nothing to do with this,” said NBC Vatican expert George Weigel.

Even though Italians have just been through a month-long political campaign, locals say these new election-style posters are a surprise.

Ned Fridrich / NBC News

As cardinals prepare to choose who will be the next pope, posters seen on the streets of Rome appear to implore them to choose Ghanaian cardinal Peter Turkson.

Next week, cardinals will hold informal discussions of church issues, known as "general congregations." At the top of their agenda will be the announcement of a date for the 115 eligible cardinals to enter the conclave – a closed, secret voting session held inside the Sistine Chapel that continues until they agree on a new leader for the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

Cardinal Turkson, the head of the Vatican’s justice and peace department, has been tipped in some quarters as Africa’s frontrunner for pope.

Irish bookmakers, Paddy Power, said Turkson had received the highest number of bets of any cardinal, including one wager of $7,600.

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BAD AROLSEN, Germany -- Wilhelm Thiem may be 72 but he celebrated his first real birthday in November.

Abducted in Poland by Nazi troops at age two, Thiem has spent most of his life on a painful journey, seeking to discover his true name and identity. 

Until just a few months ago, the retired entrepreneur had not known his birth date, where he was born, what had happened to his mother or whether he had any other family members.

"I hardly knew anything about my personal history," Thiem said. "I always felt like an outsider, it was a feeling of not belonging in this world."

Thiem was raised by a foster parent in northern Germany who was appointed by the Nazis to take care of the young child. Thiem called her "Mrs. Huebner" but was later officially adopted and given her maiden name.

At age 12, Thiem learned that Mrs. Huebner was not his real mother. He started asking her about his past, wanting to learn more about his family, but his questions remained unanswered. For decades, his personal history remained a mystery.

Early last year, Thiem came across a newspaper article about the International Tracing Service (ITS), an organization that maintains a vast archive of files related to more than 17.5 million victims of the Holocaust and Nazi oppression.

"At first the ITS researchers told me that they could not find any documents with my name on them," Thiem recalled. "But then they contacted the Red Cross in Poland and in the end, there were some leads."

'Very emotional moment'
After several months of research, Thiem was informed that he had been born in Lodz, Poland, and that his birth name was Zbigniew Wilhelm Katmierczak.

For the first time in his life, Thiem held a birth certificate in his hands that gave him an identity.

"It was a very emotional moment," Thiem recalled. "Both my wife and I could not hold back tears."

Researchers revealed that his mother was also sent to Germany as a forced laborer but later returned to Poland. She eventually married a Frenchman and relocated to France.

Thiem was also told of a surviving aunt, who still lives in his Polish hometown.

He is now anxiously making plans for a trip to Lodz with his wife for a very special family reunion.

"I am hoping to learn more facts, maybe find other family members," Thiem said. "Maybe I can find traces of my mother and father. All of this is of huge interest to me, it means so much."

Established by Allies in the final days of the Second World War and originally run by the Red Cross, the ITS helps to uncover the fates of Holocaust victims and others who suffered under the Nazi regime.

The archive in Bad Arolsen is said to be the largest storage facility of documents related to the Holocaust. It includes 30 million documents in 16 miles of shelves housing information about Holocaust survivors, displaced persons, slave laborers and political refugees from former Eastern Bloc countries.

Over the past 50 years, the ITS has answered more than 10 million requests. About 1,000 search requests continue to trickle in to the archive monthly.

"Many people still do not know what has become of their loved ones," said Dr. Ingeborg Berggreen-Merkel from Germany's federal commission of culture. "Even decades after the end of the Holocaust and the war, there is this persisting uncertainty, which results from the fact that part of one's own history remains untold." 

Visitors to the archive come into direct contact with the bureaucracy of mass murder.

Its meticulous records include concentration camp files, "deportation cards," patient records and a post-war index of non-German citizens. Its researchers plow through the stacks of yellowing paper, registering and scanning as many of the historic documents as possible. More than 95 percent have now been digitized.

But due to concerns about the victims' privacy, the ITS and the German government kept the files closed to the public for half a century. While search requests have been accepted since the end of the war, the archive was initially not "open source."

Following public pressure from survivor groups, historians and researchers, who called for public access to the archives, the ITS Commission -- consisting of 11 member states -- declared itself in favor of opening up Bad Arolsen in 1998.

Yet, scholars and researchers were only given access to the documents beginning in 2007.

"I think it was criminal that the documents were not opened up earlier," said Holocaust survivor and U.S. judge Thomas Buergenthal. He was able to find records of his father's ordeal in the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald at Bad Arolsen.

"This archive is my father's only memorial, we have no other," Buergenthal added.

But although time has claimed many eyewitnesses, the archive is still helping to reunite survivors of Nazi terror -- such as Thiem and his long lost aunt. She remembers her nephew -- who is now an elderly man -- as a "little child."

"I spent a lifetime wondering who I really am, now I know," Thiem said.

Related: 

A retired teacher's courageous crusade: Tackling neo-Nazi hate

Despite dark past, young Israelis seek new lives in German capital

Warm glow of Berlin's 'beautiful' gas streetlights set to fade

MAINZ, Germany -- A German court has ruled that the Internet is as much of a necessity for daily life as a fridge or car.

The legal decision means Germans now have the right to claim compensation from service providers if their Internet access is disrupted.

"Most people in Germany use the Internet daily. Thus, it has become an essential medium in the life of German society, the disruption of which has an immediate impact on the course of everyday life," the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe stated.

The court made the ruling after hearing the case of a man who was unable to use his high-speed Internet connection, which also offered a telephone and fax line, for two months from late 2008 to early 2009.

He had already received compensation for the cost of having to use a cellphone, but wanted to be compensated for not being able to use the Internet. Under German law, the loss of use of essential material items can be compensated.

"The Internet plays a very important role today and affects the private life of an individual in very decisive ways. Therefore loss of use of the Internet is comparable to the loss of use of a car," a court spokeswoman told Germany's ARD television.

The ruling puts the Internet among the things legally recognized as "essentials."  

In Germany, "repo men" are not allowed to impound necessities -- including cars, refrigerators, beds, chairs or other basic furniture -- if debts are unpaid.

Paragraph 811 of the country's "code of civil procedure" -- which is known as the ZPO -- protects "items that are necessary for daily personal needs."

Among the ZPO's exemptions for farmers who have defaulted on debts are "small animals in limited numbers, as well as one milk cow, or at the debtor's option, a total of two pigs, goats or sheep, if these animals are necessary for the feeding of the debtor, his family or people who help in the household, on the farm or in his business."

"The rights of individuals are well secured in our country," Detlef Huermann from the Association of German Bailiffs said. "In our field, German lawmakers are continuously expanding the protection of debtors, for example, and compared to legislation in other European countries, our laws are very humane in that respect."

Reuters contributed to this report.

"When police arrived they called an ambulance, but then told me that they could not help me any further and left," Rahimi recalled, explaining how he only realized how serious his injuries were after spotting blood running out from under his T-shirt during the brutal attack on Sept. 17, 2011.

Rahimi's case does not appear to be unique. As the euro zone debt crisis leaves Greece grappling with a 25 percent overall unemployment rate, activists say they have noted an increase in the number of hate crimes reported.

'It is virtually impossible to find a job': Brain drain is new Greek tragedy

Far-right populism has also found fertile ground in the near-bankrupt country, where the economy is forecast to contract by 7 percent this year and every second youth is out of work.

Nazi-style salutes
The Golden Dawn party – no more than an extremist fringe group when it was established in the late 1980s and which has been branded "neo-Nazi" by its opponents – has been gaining support amid the country's deteriorating economic situation.

Citing a poll by VPRC which appeared in the "Ellada Avrio" newspaper on Friday, Reuters reported:

Backing for the ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn, which has been linked to a rise in attacks against migrants in recent months, stood at 14 percent, double their take in June elections that gave the party a foothold in parliament. That would make the group the country's third largest party.

The party's rabidly anti-immigrant message has stuck a chord with many voters as EU/IMF imposed austerity propels unemployment levels to a record 25 percent.

Golden Dawn denies it is neo-Nazi but bears a Swastika-like emblem and its supporters have been seen giving Nazi-style salutes. The party's leader, Nikolaos Mihaloliakos, has denied the Holocaust occurred while one lawmaker, Eleni Zaroulia, called immigrants "sub-humans" in parliament on Thursday.

Reuters added that the opinion poll showed that "Greeks' frustration with their political leaders has grown as the coalition prepares to push through the new round of austerity measures to appease [foreign] lenders and secure more bailout aid and keep the country afloat."

Alkis Konstantinidis / EPA, file

Migrants are held during a police ID-check operation in Athens, Greece, on August 6.

Over the past decade, Greece has become the major gateway into the European Union for illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers from Asia and Africa.

'Growing despair'
Experts estimate that between 800,000 and 1 million undocumented migrants now live in Greece, a country with a population of nearly 11 million.

"The rapid increase of illegal immigration in the past years, growing despair over the ailing economy and a loss of trust in our political leadership have fueled public anger and given way to dangerous populism in the country," says Loukas Tsoukalis, head of Greek think-tank Eliamep.

Campaigning on a message of ultra-nationalism and fierce anti-immigrant policies, Golden Dawn won 18 seats in parliament during June's national election.

"We have to protect 10 million Greeks that are suffering from the very bad economy and from the killings, rapes, shootings and everything else that all illegal immigrants are doing to this country," Ilias Panagotiaros, a Golden Dawn politician and a member of Greek parliament, told NBC News.

Andy Eckardt / NBC News

Ilias Panagiotaros of Greece's far-right Golden Dawn Party.

A poll last month found that the popularity of Nikos Mihalolioakos, head of the Golden Dawn party, has climbed to 22 percent, up 8 points from May.

However, it is not just a harsh political message that has been drawing support for Golden Dawn.

In an attempt to build an image of social responsibility, followers of the movement have taken up the roles of what some Greeks call "a crumbling public support system."

'For Greeks only'
Last month, members of Golden Dawn set up booths in a central Athens square to distribute groceries and collect blood donations. "For Greeks only" was the message, after visitors were asked to provide identification of Greek citizenship.

"Golden Dawn has been taking advantage of the growing despair, presents itself as a protector of the weak and vulnerable," analyst Tsoukalis says. "In dangerous neighborhoods they have offered to escort old ladies to the grocery store around the corner."

Rising political and socio-economic discontent, nurtured by a surge of crime rates in major Greek cities, have also led to widespread public acceptance that followers of Golden Dawn sometimes substitute for police and other government officials.

A video shot in early September shows members of Golden Dawn checking work permits at a local market in Rafina, where migrant vendors sell their goods. Minutes later, several people with black Golden Dawn T-shirts and Greek flags moved in and destroyed the stands.

"We are going to defend our country, our history, our religion, our culture," Golden Dawn's Panagiotaros adds. He is also one of the founders of a ultra-nationalistic football fan club called Galazia Stratia, or Blue Army, that has vowed to "defend Greek national pride inside the stadiums".

Spain's economic crisis turns middle-class families into illegal squatters

In September, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, included a stark warning in his annual 'state of the union' address, saying that the euro crisis was contributing to the rise in extremism.

And in recent months, officials in Athens have vowed to set up a special police force to combat violence against migrants and plan to impose tougher penalties for these type of crimes.

"Something must happen quick," says Judith Sunderland from Human Rights Watch, who is author of a report called "Hate on the Streets: Xenophobic violence in Greece."  

“Xenophobic hate crimes have reached an alarming proportion in Greece," she added. "Victims are often actively discouraged from filing complaints, told by police officers that it is not worth their while or that they should fight back themselves. And many migrants fear that they could be locked up themselves because of their legal status."

'The country is on its knees': Ireland grapples with economic collapse

Meanwhile, Rahimi is still waiting for justice in the wake of his attack. The trial has been postponed seven times already in the past year.

"And it remains unclear, whether the prosecutor will argue that the attack had been motivated by racist or xenophobic sentiment," Sunderland told NBC News.

In debt or jobless, many Italians choose suicide

One of the three accused is Themis Skordeli, a female member of Golden Dawn, who failed to get elected to parliament last May.

According to local media reports, Skordeli has been identified as a member of a so called 'anti-migrant patrol group', which was formed to 'work the streets' of poorer Athens' neighborhoods.

Rahimi, who came to Greece in 2005, says that he now rarely leaves his apartment and has become extremely cautious when going out to visit friends.

"I am afraid to live here," he says. "I will wait until the trial is over and then definitely head to another country."

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