DRESDEN, Germany — German leaders are struggling with how, and how much, to engage with supporters of a protest movement formed around fears of an “Islamization” of their country.
Local leaders have started reaching out to supporters of the group known by its German acronym, Pegida, or the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, to listen to their complaints and try to forestall the movement. Although still largely confined to Dresden, it has found sympathizers in other cities across Germany.
The grass-roots movement, representing a swath of people fed up with the political and media culture in Germany and complaining that their elected officials are not listening to them, has grown swiftly since emerging in October, taking German leaders by surprise. But concerns about Pegida’s roots, as well as its support from neo-Nazis and extremists, have tainted the group’s motives and created a split among elected officials over how seriously they should take some of the group’s grievances about the country’s immigration and social fabric.
In Dresden, an estimated 25,000 protestors took to the streets to protest Germany’s immigration policies.
–
But Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister, warned Sunday in comments to the mass-circulation weekly Bild am Sonntag that Germans were underestimating the damage that Pegida’s “xenophobic and racist slogans and placards have already had.”
“Whether we want it or not, the world is watching Germany with great attention,” Mr. Steinmeier said.
A version of this article appears in print on January 26, 2015, on page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: German Quandary of How to Deal With Anti-Immigration Movement . Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
