German intelligence: Neo-Nazis moving from West to East Germany

Right-wing extremists are increasingly moving from areas that used to be West Germany to the former East Germany, according to the state intelligence service in Brandenburg, the state surrounding the capital Berlin.

"Neo-Nazis are buying cheap property in the east of the country and putting on concerts or founding new groupings," Jörg Müller, the service's head told Funke media group newspapers on Wednesday.

"We are registering that leading figures from the right-wing extremist scene from the old states, for example Bavaria and Dortmund, have gone to Brandenburg or Saxony," he said.

Since the reunification of Germany in 1990, the states that were part of the former West Germany are sometimes referred to as old states, and the states of the former East Germany, the German Democratic Republic as new.