Neo-Nazis carved a swastika into a 17-year-old girl’s hip in eastern Germany after she came to the aid of an immigrant girl they were pushing around.
The girl told police three young skinheads held her down while a fourth cut the Nazi emblem into her flesh with a long thin piece of metal, leaving a 5cm-long scar, police spokeswoman Heidi Hennig said.
The gang then tried to slash her face, threatening to cut the letters SS into her cheek, but she managed to run away.
The teenager was attacked in the town of Mittweida after she tried to stop the group of neo-Nazis shoving around the six-year-old from an immigrant family.
The prosecutor said the attack happened on November 3, but the victim waited several days to tell her mother.
“A medical examination showed she could not have inflicted the scars herself,” Ms Hennig said.
The police had found the little girl who was harrassed by the group and she confirmed the events, she said.
According to the victim, several people watched the attack from the balconies of their apartments.
The interior minister of the state of Saxony, Albrecht Buttolo, has called on witnesses to come forward, describing the attack as “very bad news”.
Germany has in recent years watched in alarm as violent crimes linked to the far-right have increased, along with political support for the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party.
The NPD is now represented in two regional state parliaments, including Saxony. A former lawyer for the party was today sentenced to six months in jail for making the Nazi salute.