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

EPA, file

Japanese chef Miki Nozawa had cooked for celebrities including Mikhail Gorbachev, Phil Collins, Naomi Campbell and Denzel Washington.

MUNICH, Germany -- A chef to the stars has died following a fight that reportedly started with an argument over fried noodles.

Miki Nozawa, 57, died from a cerebral hemorrhage on Monday after confronting two men outside a nightclub and demanding that they pay a bill left at his eponymous Asian diner on the German resort island of Sylt, officials said. 

According to German media reports, two customers had earlier left the restaurant after complaining to Nozawa about their beef noodle dish. The German tabloid Bild said the total bill was about $25. 

Nozawa was beaten until he was unconscious, according to reports.

Senior public prosecutor Rüdiger Meienburg said an autopsy had not clearly indicated whether the beating alone had killed Nozawa or had possibly exacerbated an existing medical condition. He said authorities were waiting for further results.

"We are vigorously investigating and trying to find out exactly what happened," Meienburg added.

Friederike Reussner / Sylter Rundschau via EPA

Miki Nozawa's death may have resulted from a brawl after unhappy customers reportedly did not pay for a noodle dish in this restaurant.

He confirmed that police had questioned two suspects but said that the exact sequence and nature of the events had not been determined.

Born in Tokyo and known for his Japanese-Italian fusion dishes, Nozawa had cooked for celebrities including Mikhail Gorbachev, Phil Collins, Naomi Campbell and Denzel Washington.

After a stint cooking for the rich and famous in Berlin and at the Billionaire Club in Sardinia, Italy, Nozawa had recently moved to Sylt, an island known for its luxurious lifestyle. He opened his Asian diner in March.

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

Valery Hache / AFP - Getty Images

Investigators are trying to track down 50 suspected Auschwitz guards who are believed to be living in Germany. The gate at the former Nazi death camp, which is located in Poland, reads "Arbeit macht frei" -- or "work will set you free."

MAINZ, Germany -- In their search for justice that has endured for decades, the biggest challenge Nazi hunters face is time. 

The knowledge that war criminals are escaping prosecution through death by natural causes means their task has never been more pressing.

On Monday, German state police arrested a 93-year-old man accused of being a guard at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Hans Lipschis is the first suspect to be facing charges as part of a drive launched earlier this year to track down 50 suspected Auschwitz guards who are believed to be living in Germany.

Most of those involved in the murder of about 6 million Jews in the Holocaust and still alive will now be in their 90s, a ripe old age for people who carried out one the most heinous crimes in the history of humanity.

But that doesn't stop Kurt Schrimm, director of Germany’s Central Investigation Center for Nazi Crimes. His agency employs 20 people, including seven focusing on the Auschwitz cases. 

"Someday there will be no more Nazi criminals to go after and then our organization will shut down," he said. "But until then, we will exhaust all investigation possibilities."

After years of frustration, Nazi hunters have also been given fresh hope by a German court's landmark ruling that has made it simpler to prosecute cases by opening the door to charges of "accessory to murder."

Efraim Zuroff, Israel director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, said he planned to ask German companies to help fund a renewed campaign to find the remaining war criminals and take advantage of the ruling, which came during the successful prosecution of John Demjanjuk.

Demjanjuk, an autoworker who lived in the U.S. for years after the war, was convicted in 2011 of 28,060 counts of being an accessory to murder and sentenced to five years in prison.

Although he died a free man in a nursing home in Germany – he was released pending his appeal – the court’s ruling that he could be convicted on his service record alone was “a total game-changer,” Zuroff said.

“Until that point … German prosecutors could not try a case unless they had evidence of a specific crime with a specific victim,” he said.

“Demjanjuk was convicted solely for his service as an armed SS guard at a death camp,” he added. “As a result, this opened up a whole new potential number of people to bring to justice.”

Valery Hache / AP

Convicted Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk leaves a courtroom after a guilty verdict in Munich, Germany, on May 12, 2011.

Zuroff said there were usually three obstacles to holding Nazi war criminals to account: Finding them; getting enough evidence; and persuading the authorities to act.

The Demjanjuk ruling changed that in Germany.

“Now in Germany, all of a sudden, all you have is one task – all you have to do is find people, because you can prove service with documents,” Zuroff said. “You don’t have to have someone who says, ‘I saw this bastard kill my fellow inmate.’”

Schrimm said that the Demjanjuk case prompted his agency to start "looking at old files with a renewed focus."

He added: “Today, any job in a concentration camp can be sufficient evidence towards a conviction as accessory to murder."

It is a ray of hope in an otherwise gloomy picture. 

“Once the Nuremberg Trials had been completed [in 1949], the prosecution of Nazi war criminals never became a serious priority in any country outside of the Soviet Union,” Zuroff added. “The failure to do more to hold the perpetrators of the Holocaust accountable is naturally a source of frustration and disappointment for me personally, as someone who has devoted practically my entire adult life to that mission."

The Holocaust saw approximately 6 million Jews – about two-thirds of the pre-World War II Jewish population in Europe – murdered to fulfill Adolf Hitler’s infamous “Final Solution.”

Roma Gypsies, Slavic people such as Poles and Russians, communists, socialists, disabled people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals and others were also slaughtered in large numbers.

Zuroff said that no one really knew how many people were involved in the killings, let alone how many were still alive.

But, asked to estimate, he reckoned that “probably not more than 10 to 15 percent” of tens of thousands of Nazi war criminals had been brought to justice.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center publishes an annual “most wanted” list, and also rates countries based on their willingness to take action. Only the United States got the top rating in 2013; Germany was among five countries in the second-highest group.

Zuroff said that “to their credit” Germany was one of the few countries that would bring prosecutions.

In contrast Austria, which became part of the Hitler’s Third Reich in 1938, was “horrific, terrible, the worst,” Zuroff said.

“They haven’t succeeded in taking action against a Nazi war criminal in more than 30 years. It’s not because there are no Nazis in Austria,” he said. “There’s a country that until 20 years ago … got away with claiming they were Hitler’s first victim. Austrians played a very leading role in the murders carried out by the Third Reich.”

Zuroff said it was “impossible” to get prosecutions in the Baltic countries, “especially in Lithuania.”

“They were the worst because they had a vast number of collaborators,” he said. “They don’t like punishing their own people and would prefer to think of themselves as victims of communism and not killers of Jews, which they were. They were outstanding killers of Jews.”

Avner Shalev, chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to victims of the Holocaust, said the survivors "live with the memories every day."

"Bringing the perpetrators to justice sends an important educational and moral message to society at large: These kinds of crimes will not be tolerated, and there are no free passes," he said. "Although unfortunately many of the perpetrators escaped justice, nevertheless each trial sends an important message."

Germany and its allies controlled most of Europe during World War II, including Norway, France, Italy, Greece, the Balkans, Poland and deep into the then Soviet Union.

Lydia Brenners was just 9 years old when she was caught up in a horrific massacre of Jews in Novi Sad in modern-day Serbia by Hungarian forces in 1942. Nazi-allied Hungary had annexed the area in 1941.

Brenners said she was forced to go to with her father, mother and sister to a local theater where many Jewish people were being gathered. They were taken in groups to the banks of the River Danube, where they were shot dead. A total of more than 1,200 civilians are thought to have been killed, according to The Associated Press.

“Slowly we came nearer and nearer [to the end of the line],” said Brenners, now 81 and living in Rishon Letzion, Israel. “Today I know it was for killing. Then … I didn’t know, maybe the older people understood.”

“In the row behind me, there was an auntie of one of my girlfriends. I knew her. She was holding a baby in her hands,” she said. “After a few minutes … [she] burst out with nerves and started to shout, ‘I cannot bear it anymore.’”

“The soldiers came and took her,” she said, despite efforts of others who surrounded her in an unsuccessful attempt to save her. “She did not come back from there.”

But then came an order from Budapest to stop the killing and Brenners and her family were released. They then took the train to Budapest that day and hid in the city until it was taken by Soviet troops toward the end of the war.

Brenners said years later she met a woman who said she was the child of her friend’s aunt. The woman was still trying to find out how she survived.

Brenners said she remembered an officer on a horse -- who was addressed as “Shanny” -- overseeing the massacre and the gendarmes referring to lists of names when deciding who should be taken.

She said “Shanny” was a nickname for Sandor Kepiro, a gendarme officer accused of helping organize the killings.

Kepiro was given a 10-year prison sentence over the Novi Sad massacre by a Hungarian court in 1944, but this was overturned after Germany formally occupied Hungary later that year, according to The Associated Press.

Kepiro, who lived in Argentina after the war, admitted he was present and supervised the identities of those being rounded up, but denied knowing they were killed until later, the news service said.

Kepiro was tried again in Hungary but acquitted in 2011, with a court ruling there was insufficient evidence against him, the AP reported. The prosecution appealed, saying the judges’ decision was “unfounded,” and so did the defense, which complained the ruling had not actually cleared Kepiro.

However, Kepiro died in September 2011, an innocent man in the eyes of the law, a hero to some in Hungary, but a killer who escaped justice to Zuroff and his fellow Nazi hunters.

Ian Johnston reported from London. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related:

• German police arrest 93-year-old suspected of being Auschwitz guard
• 'Nazi Bride' case highlights rising influence of women in far-right movement
• A retired teacher's courageous campaign: Tackling neo-Nazi hate

Hulton Archive / Getty Images

The gates of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, Poland, circa 1965. The sign above reads "Arbieit Macht Frei," or "Work Makes You Free." German police on Monday arrested a 93-year-old man suspected of having been a guard at the camp.

German state police on Monday arrested a 93-year-old man suspected of being a former guard at the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust, the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

A news release did not name the suspect, in accordance with German law, but it said he had been arrested on suspicion of being an accessory to murder.

The suspect had served as a guard at the camp in Poland from the autumn of 1941 until its liberation in early 1945, the prosecutor's office said in the statement.

Following a search of the man’s apartment, the suspect was brought before a judge and was in investigative custody while an arraignment was being prepared, the statement said.

A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office could not immediately be reached for comment.

According to German media reports, the prosecutor’s office had launched an investigation against the man in November 2012.

About 1.1 million people, including 960,000 Jews, died at Auschwitz, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

MUNICH, Germany - The surviving member of a neo-Nazi cell went on trial on Monday for a series of racist murders that scandalized Germany and exposed authorities' inability or reluctance to recognize right-wing hate crime.

The chance discovery of the gang, the National Socialist Underground (NSU), which had gone undetected for more than a decade, has forced Germany to acknowledge it has a more militant and dangerous neo-Nazi fringe than previously thought.

Beate Zschaepe, 38, is charged with complicity in the murder of eight Turks, a Greek and a German policewoman between 2000 and 2007, as well as two bombings in immigrant areas of Cologne and 15 bank robberies.

"With its historical, social and political dimensions, the NSU trial is one of the most significant of post-war German history," lawyers for the family of the first victim, flower seller Enver Simsek, said in a statement.

The case has shaken a country that believed it had learned the lessons of the past, and reopened a debate about whether it must do more to tackle the far-right and lingering racism.

Zschaepe, wearing a black jacket and white shirt, chatted with her lawyers before the judges entered, her back turned to the television cameras. One of four other defendants charged with assisting the NSU hid under a dark hood.

Stephan Jansen / EPA

A Turkish woman who tried forcibly to enter the court building where Beate Zschaepe is being tried is arrested by police in Munich, Germany, on Monday.

Outside the courthouse, German-Turkish community groups and anti-racism demonstrators held up banners including one that read: "Hitler child Zschaepe, you will pay for your crimes".

About 500 police officers provided tight security. Members of the public and media, who lined up before dawn for a chance to attend, even had their hair searched before being allowed in.

The existence of the gang came to light in November 2011 when the two men believed to have founded the NSU with Zschaepe, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boehnhardt, committed suicide after a botched bank robbery and set their caravan ablaze.

Christof Stache / AFP - Getty Images

Beate Zschaepe who is charged with complicity in the murders of eight ethnic Turks, a Greek immigrant and a German policewoman between 2000 and 2007, enters a courtroom in Munich, Germany, on Monday.

In the charred vehicle, police found the gun used in all 10 murders and a grotesque DVD claiming responsibility for them, in which the bodies of the victims were pictured with a cartoon Pink Panther totting up the number of dead.

After the suicides, Zschaepe is believed to have set fire to a flat she shared with the men in Zwickau, in east Germany. Four days later, she turned herself in to police in her hometown of Jena, saying: "I'm the one you're looking for."

For the victims' families, the trial will be the first chance to come face-to-face with Zschaepe, whose blank expression and resolute silence since her arrest have left people struggling to make sense of her motives.

"The Banality of Evil" read the front page of the newspaper Die Welt. The mass-circulation Bild wrote that Zschaepe "looks like a woman at the supermarket till" rather than someone "rabidly mad or explosive".

Few expect Zschaepe to explain herself at the trial. The Norwegian anti-immigrant mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011, wrote to Zschaepe last year addressing her as "Dear Sister" and urging her to use the trial to spread far-right ideology.

Reuters

Beate Zschaepe, right, is seen with Uwe Boehnhardt of the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Underground in this undated handout picture provided by the German Federal Police.

Hearings are scheduled into early 2014, with Zschaepe's estranged relatives and the parents of Mundlos and Boehnhardt due to testify.

As teenagers in Jena, the trio were known to authorities to be involved in racist hate crimes and bomb making, but they escaped arrest and assumed new identities.

Prosecutors say they hose shopkeepers and small business owners as easy targets to try to hound immigrants out of Germany. Some of the victims' relatives came under suspicion because police simply did not consider a far-right motive.

"During the investigations they were either treated as suspects, or as relatives of criminals," said lawyer Angelika Lex.

Parliament is conducting an inquiry into how police and intelligence agencies failed to link the murders or share information about the far-right threat.

Related:

• 'Nazi Bride' case highlights rising influence of women in far-right movement
• A retired teacher's courageous campaign: Tackling neo-Nazi hate

This story was originally published on Sun May 5, 2013 10:35 PM 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

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Survivor Petro Mischtschuk, 87, from Ukraine, wears his old prisoner's garb as he stands near the memorial site of the Little Camp at Buchenwald.

Between July 1937 and April 1945, the Nazis imprisoned a quarter of a million people in the Buchenwald concentration camp, located near the German city of Weimar. Around 56,000 of them were killed before the camp was liberated by U.S troops on April 11, 1945.

68 years later, Reuters photographer Lisi Niesner interviewed some of the remaining survivors as they returned to Buchenwald to mark the anniversary of the liberation.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Victor Karpus, 88, from Ukraine, stood at the muster ground where inmates gathered at dawn each day for a roll call. Karpus was imprisoned in several camps including Buchenwald for a total of three years. He even once managed to escape from a camp but got captured and taken to Buchenwald, where he remained until its liberation.

"Work or die – it was impossible to get out from Buchenwald," Karpus says.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

"To each his own": An inscription on Buchenwald's iron gate.

Eva Pusztai, 88, from Hungary, sat in a wheelchair in front of a reconstructed gallows. In July 1944 she was deported to Birkenau and six weeks later to Muenchmuehle, one of 136 satellite camps of Buchenwald.

The forced labor in the arms industry or the camp's stone quarry took the imprisoned to the brink of their physical abilities. "You got just enough food to survive. I lost a third of my weight and I was almost starving to death," she says. 

"The employable have to be destroyed by work," she says, explaining the attitude of the Nazis to their prisoners. Her right eye filled up with a single tear that ran down her cheek, then she composed herself and smiled.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

"Where is your god? Why he does not help you?" Jakob Silberstein, born in Poland in 1924, remembers the mocking of a high-level Nazi on Yom Kippur. He survived six years of captivity in Buchenwald and Auschwitz and witnessed brutal actions by the SS, being locked in a standing cubicle for a week, carrying stones and drinking rainwater for days. 

He was standing inside the gas chamber at Birkenau when an SS man asked if any of the men were skilled laborers. "I stated I was an electrician, which luckily saved my life," he said. After the liberation he found out that none of his family or friends had survived the war. He now lives in Israel and tirelessly tells his story.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Urns are displayed in a room adjacent to the crematorium at Buchenwald.

Professor Elling Kvamme, 94, from Norway, stood at the site of Barrack Block 22. He was teaching medicine at a university in Oslo in 1943 when he was arrested for his connections with underground politics. "Students are always dangerous and the Nazis realized it very quickly," he explained.

He was forced to take part in the Nazi program of Germanization and had to work at the pathological facility in Buchenwald. Before the dead were cremated in an incineration system developed to veil the traces of murder, specimens were taken from their corpses for anatomical collections.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Vasile Nussbaum, 83, from Romania, spent a year in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. "Buchenwald was a sanatorium in comparison to Auschwitz" he recalls without hesitation.

Nussbaum revisits the site of the camp every year on liberation day. "You never know what’s coming, today we are 83 years old and in the next year we are no more here", he says.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Barracks behind trees at Buchenwald.

Editor's note: Pictures taken between April 11-14, 2013 and made available to NBC News today. Read more at Reuters' Photographers Blog.

Jochen Luebke / EPA

An eye-opening experience for Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) as he is confronted by a topless demonstrator during a tour of the Hanover Fair in Hanover, Germany, on April 8, 2013. He was accompanied by German Chancellor Angela Merkel (center right) and Volkswagen Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn (extreme right).

Russian President Vladimir Putin laughed off a protest against him by topless women in Germany on Monday, joking that he liked what he had seen while sharply rebuffing German criticism of his human rights record.

Three members of the women's rights group Femen, which has staged protests against Russia's detention of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot around Europe, disrupted his visit to a trade fair in the German city of Hanover focusing on Russian business.

They stripped to the waist and shouted slogans calling the Russian leader a "dictator" before being covered up and bundled away by security men.

Julian Schultenschulte / EPA

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin exchange glances after the incident involving topless demonstrators.

Jochen Luebke / EPA

Security staff stop another topless demonstrator at the Volkswagen stand at the Hanover Fair.

"Regarding this performance, I liked it," grinned Putin at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, adding that it had helped to promote the trade fair though he suggested that the security men could have been "gentler".

"I did not catch what they were shouting, I did not even see if they were blondes, brunettes or chestnut-haired ... I don't see anything terrible in (the protest), though I think ... it is better to be dressed if one wants to discuss political matters." Read the full story.

Jochen Luebke / AFP - Getty Images

A demonstrator is held by security staff.

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This story was originally published on Mon Apr 8, 2013 9:12 AM EDT

Lego

Birol Kilic, chairman of the Turkish Cultural Association of Austria, says the Lego play set modeled on the Jabba The Hutt alien's fictional home was culturally insensitive.

MUNICH – Danish toy maker Lego plans to stop selling a model of the “palace” of slug-like Star Wars character Jabba The Hutt after complaints that it resembles a revered mosque, according to a group that raised the grievance.

Birol Kilic, chairman of the Turkish Cultural Association of Austria, said Monday the play set modeled on the obese alien’s fictional home was culturally insensitive.

Photo by Julian Finney / Getty Images

Birol Kilic, chairman of the Turkish Cultural Association of Austria, said the Lego version of Jabba The Hutt's palace resembles Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, a historic mosque that became a model for other centers of Islam and is now a museum.

“This does not belong in children’s bedrooms,” he said. “And the minaret-like tower features machine guns. Children will become insensitive to violence and other cultures.”

After a meeting between his organization and the company last week in Munich, Germany, Lego promised to stop selling the play set, Kilic said.

Lego posted on Twitter Monday that it has always intended to stop selling the item at the end of the year. “We only keep a product in the assortment for a few years and it was scheduled to exit in 2013 from launch,” the tweet said.

However, there was no mention of those original plans in a January press release which said: “The LEGO Group regrets that the product has caused the members of the Turkish cultural community to interpret it wrongly.”

Roar Trangbæk, a Lego spokesman, on Monday denied that the group had anything to do with their decision.

“The decision to terminate this particular product is not based on any dialogue with the mentioned community," Trangbæk said. "We regret the misinterpretation but we fully stand behind the product.”

Trangbæk also said that it is the company's policy not to design models that depict religious structures. 

The Danish toy giant has in recent years made building sets modeled on hit movies including Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars.

In the 1983 science-fiction blockbuster “Return of the Jedi”, Jabba uses Princess Leia as his slave at the palace.

Lego

Birol Kilic, chairman of the Turkish Cultural Association of Austria, says the Lego play set modeled on the Jabba the Hutt alien's fictional home was culturally insensitive.

Kilic believed that the Lego version, aimed at 9- to 14-year-olds, resembles Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, a historic mosque that became a model for other centers of Islam and is now a museum in the Turkish city.

Kilic said his organization was notified of the issue by an outraged Austrian father, whose sister had given the Lego set to his son last Christmas. The father returned the toy to the store, Kilic said, and the Turkish Cultural Association petitioned Lego to drop the play set from its line-up.

Kilic said the issue was not merely cultural, but also a reminder that parents should be more thoughtful about what toys their kids play with.

“We’re not the Taliban of Vienna,” he said of his independent, Vienna-based organization with about 700 members, “but we do give thought to our country and our continent.”

This story was originally published on Mon Apr 1, 2013 10:44 AM EDT

Britta Pedersen / AP

Police officers stand guard as sections of the Berlin Wall are removed Wednesday despite protests by people who think it should be preserved.

BERLIN -- Work crews backed by about 250 police removed parts of the Berlin Wall before dawn Wednesday to make way for an upscale building project, despite demands by protesters that the site be preserved.

Residents of the area expressed shock at the move, which followed several protests including one attended by former Baywatch star David Hasselhoff.

Police spokesman Alexander Toennies said there were no incidents as work began at about 5 a.m. (12 a.m. ET) to remove four sections of the wall, each about 1.5 yards wide, from a stretch known as the East Side Gallery. That will make way for an access route to the planned high-rise luxury apartments along the nearby Spree River.

The East Side Gallery is the longest remaining part of the Berlin Wall. Construction workers removed a first piece earlier this month as part of a plan to make a road to a new luxury apartment complex.

The public outcry brought a halt while local politicians and the investor said they were looking for a solution to keep the rest of the wall untouched.

The investor, Maik Uwe Hinkel, decided to remove four more 1.5-yard-wide parts of the wall, according to Toennies.

Rainer Jensen / EPA

Security was tight during the demolition following demonstrations that halted work earlier this month.

"The constructor had the right to do this and he informed us a few days ago about his plans. Last night we were told that he wanted to remove the wall pieces early this morning," Toennies said.

At least 136 people died trying to scale the wall that divided communist-run East Berlin from West Berlin. Over the years, the East Side Gallery has become a tourist attraction with colorful paintings decorating the old concrete tiles.

"I can't believe they came here in the dark in such a sneaky manner," said Kani Alavi, the head of the East Side Gallery's artists' group. "All they see is their money, they have no understanding for the historic relevance and art of this place."

By mid-morning the new 6-yard gap was covered by a wooden fence and protected by scores of police. Passers-by and a handful of protesters stared in disbelief.

"If you take these parts of the wall away, you take away the soul of the city," said Ivan McClostney, 32, who moved here a year ago from Ireland. "This way, you make it like every other city. It's so sad."

In an emailed statement, Hinkel said the removal of parts of the wall was a temporary move to enable trucks to access the building site. He said after four weeks of fruitless negotiations with city officials and owners of adjacent property he was no longer willing to wait.

The East Side Gallery was recently restored at a cost of more than $3 million to the city. The wall section stood on the eastern side of the elaborate border strip built by communist East Germany after it sealed off West Berlin in 1961 until Nov. 9, 1989.

The stretch of wall was transformed into an open-air gallery months after the opening and is now covered in colorful murals painted by about 120 artists.

They include the famous image of boxy East German Trabant car that appears to burst through the wall; and a fraternal communist kiss between Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and East German boss Erich Honecker.

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Protesters block removal of historic Berlin Wall for condo project

50 years ago, the Berlin Wall arose to divide