Someone whose job it is to think about what could happen in the future (a futurologist) has said that if you want to understand the present, and have a good idea of what the future might hold, it is important to understand the past. This is why it's important here to have some understanding of who the Nazis were, and what happened when they were in power in Germany. Their persecution of minority ethnic people is an example of what an extreme right wing movement can do, and what they can believe in, and the Nazis particularly focused their actions on Jewish people. Today, extreme right wing movements generally think of all minority ethnic groups as being in some way 'racially inferior', and often want to exclude them from society. 'Movement' is just another word for a group of people who have a common aim, or share the ideas of a campaign.

There are many extreme right wing groups throughout Europe, (for example, there are known to be at least 40 such groups just in Spain). Their ideas are often supported by extreme right wing organisations in America who feel that although many different minority ethnic people now populate America, there is still a chance that Europe might 'avoid' being populated by so many different groups.

Some extreme right wing groups are called 'neo-Nazis', meaning 'new-Nazis', and because of increasing interest in these groups in Europe, and the success of some of them in elections, in 1997 a campaign was launched that was called the 'European Year Against Racism'. Individuals, organisations and authorities united their efforts against racism and against extreme right wing groups, and in fact, this website itself is a product of that struggle by some groups and individuals.

There have been racist murders and fire bombings by extreme right wing groups in both Sweden and in Germany, and some extreme right wing movements in Europe have 'played-down' their true racist beliefs in order to gain more popular support.

Democracy means that the most popular political party rules, and that each person who can vote has one vote each. Democracy also says that people should be free to express their beliefs, and this means that people who believe that minority ethnic groups are 'inferior' in some way are allowed to form political parties, and to try to get votes for their beliefs. It is important to listen carefully to what people have to say about things like racism and extreme right wing ideas, and to make sure that democracy and the rights of minority ethnic people are protected.

There is a very famous quotation about this. It was written by the Reverend Martin Niemoeller, who was a survivor of the Nazi prisons and the Holocaust during the Second World War. He was a German Lutheran pastor, and was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp in Dachau in 1938. He was freed by the allied forces in 1945. When you read the quotation, you need to know that both the Communists and the Social Democrats are political parties, and that right wing groups do not agree with what they believe in. Trade unionists are people who support the rights of workers in their jobs, and the extreme right wing does not agree with their beliefs either. Reverend Niemoeller was talking about the Nazis, and he said:

First they arrested the Communists - but I was not a Communist, so I did nothing.
Then they came for the Social Democrats - but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing.
Then they arrested the trade unionists - and I did nothing because I was not one.
And then they came for the Jews and then the Catholics, but I was neither a Jew nor a Catholic and I did nothing.
At last they came and arrested me - and there was no one left to do anything about it.