At the polling sites, swastikas are on full display—on armbands, posters, flags, banners. Storm Troopers, the SS, and a paramilitary veterans’ army called the Stahlhelm—Steel Helmets—are monitoring the polls. Anyone who wants to cast a vote must walk past rows of armed Nazis. In the face of all this fearmongering and intimidation, Germans show up at the polls in droves. The voter turnout is 89 percent.
