Excerpt:
There's barely a refugee to be seen on the streets of northeastern Germany, but in campaigning for Sunday's regional election they feature everywhere -- particularly at rallies of the populist, anti-migrant AfD party.
"If we want to feel like we're still in Germany, we need to send a stop signal," cried an AfD candidate, Lars Loewe, on the campaign stump at Wismar, a Baltic coast town of 42,000 inhabitants.
Around 300 mostly middle-aged people and pensioners listened attentively at the rally a week before the vote in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state, while tourists strolled by, admiring the seaside view with sailboats bobbing in the distance.