People hold a banner reading: "Peace is the way" as they attend a manifestation following the killing of a German man in Chemnitz, Germany September 2, 2018.
Leading German Social Democrats and some conservatives called on Monday for surveillance of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) after some of its leaders marched with the anti-Islam PEGIDA group.
Some 6,000 supporters of the two groups demonstrated in the eastern city of Chemnitz on Saturday against the fatal stabbing of a man, allegedly by two migrants.
The case and subsequent xenophobic attacks have revived a debate over Chancellor Angela Merkel's liberal immigration policy and the need to crack down on far-right groups. SPD leader Andrea Nahles told reporters in Bavaria that she backed observation of the AfD: "After Chemnitz, there are good reasons to do that. The AfD allowed itself to become a front organisation for radical rightists in the streets of Chemnitz, either willingly or unwillingly."
Police in Germany's southern state of Bavaria are investigating two officers suspected of performing the illegal Hitler salute.The German constitution makes it a crime to exhibit Nazi symbols and the incident is likely to feed into a heated debate about racism and the rise of the far right after a record influx of mainly Muslim migrants three years ago.Police said in a statement on Saturday the two policemen had shouted anti-immigrant remarks and made the salute in a pub in the city of Rosenheim on Thursday. It based its information on a witness who was in the vicinity of the two officers.Rival protests held over killing of German citizenA third man, described as a security guard in the police statement, had also taken part and made the salute. The policemen have been suspended.German politicians have been urging action to combat a rise in hostility toward foreigners after skinheads last Sunday clashed with police in an eastern city where a man was fatally stabbed and two migrants were identified as the main suspects.Skinheads raised their arms in Nazi salutes, chased people who appeared to be outsiders and wrestled with police in Chemnitz after police identified the suspects as a Syrian and an Iraqi.Far-right protests continue in eastern GermanyThe leaking of the arrest warrant for one of the two stabbing suspects to the anti-Islam group PEGIDA raised concerns that some justice officials in the state of Saxony, where Chemnitz is located, were sympathetic to the far right."We will not allow the extreme right to infiltrate our society," Justice Minister Katarina Barley told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday, urging authorities in Saxony to investigate far-right groups.Chancellor Angela Merkel's liberal immigration policy remains deeply divisive in a country that has taken in more than 1.6 million people over the last four years.The influx contributed to the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which entered parliament for the first time in an election last year with a campaign that proclaimed Islam to be incompatible with the German constitution.Some 8,000 people took part in a demonstration organised by the AfD and the anti-Islam group PEGIDA in Chemnitz on Saturday. About 3,000 people attended a rival protest by leftist groups.Police said on Sunday that the demonstrations were largely peaceful.Leftist groups will hold a concert in the city on Monday to denounce xenophobia and hatred against refugees and foreigners. 
Germany suspends two policemen over Nazi salute
Bavarian premier Markus Soeder told the broadcaster ntv there might not be enough evidence to warrant observation of the AfD as a whole, but individuals could potentially be monitored.
He said he was troubled by the AfD's actions in Chemnitz, and rejected calls by some party members to relax gun control laws in Bavaria. "It's not just about an opposition party; they have a hidden agenda," he said. "We have to send a clear signal in Bavaria that we don't want what happened in Chemnitz."
AfD leader Alexander Gauland has said public anger after the stabbing in Chemnitz was justified, but that his party does not support extremism.
AFD SUPPORT RISING
The AfD, which won nearly 13 percent in last year's federal election, rose two percentage points to 16 percent in an RTL opinion poll after the events in Chemnitz.
Martin Doering, spokesman for the intelligence service of Saxony, where Chemnitz lies, said a decision on surveillance would be premature, and that it could take weeks to complete investigations into possible right- and left-wing extremism surrounding the Chemnitz case.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and his Bavarian CSU say the conditions have not been met to monitor the AfD as a whole.
Volker Kauder, a top Merkel aide, said on Sunday that comments by some AfD politicians inciting violence against media groups showed the party wanted to "attack our state".
But Stefan Mayer, state secretary in the Interior Ministry and a member of the CSU, said a crackdown on the AfD could backfire. "That may well give it a sort of martyr image," he told German radio.
Fifty-seven percent of Germans polled by the Civey Institut for Funke Mediengruppe agree that the AfD should be monitored by the government.
A court in the town of Landau on Monday sentenced an Afghan youth to 8-1/2 years in jail for the fatal stabbing of his 15-year-old girlfriend in the small western town of Kandel last December.