Decades after Hitler came to power, the influence of his ideology lives on – and Neo-Nazism, strictly suppressed in Germany, has found breathing space in the Czech Republic.

Ondrej Cakl, chairman of the Czech human rights ‘Tolerance’ organisation, started monitoring the activities of Neo-Nazis and their sympathisers in the 90s.

“I started attending right-wing demonstrations in 1990 because I sympathised with the ideas,” he said. “But then I figured out there were lies and manipulation. After every such rally, about 50 racist skinheads would beat someone up. That was when it struck me how scary it was. For the first time in my life I saw someone kick a person in the face with a boot. There was a lot of blood and the person couldn’t see anything because of the blood pouring out.”

For more than a decade Ondrej has been putting together archive footage of such events.

Partly thanks to his footage about 50 of the most active Neo-Nazis in the Czech Republic were arrested.

Today the right-wing extremists try to behave, at least in public.

The event called ‘Freedom day’ in the east Bohemian city of Hradec Kralove was meant to become the biggest rally of its kind in the Czech Republic ever. But when its location was made public, the event was banned.

The event was organised by the extreme right ‘Workers’ Party’ (in Czech ‘Delnicka strana’ – DS).

“Media – that’s the problem! If it wasn’t for the media, there wouldn’t have been such hysteria around us and our event wouldn’t have been cancelled. And there wouldn’t have been so many police! It’s absolutely excessive!” says DS deputy head Petr Kotab.

DS has been striving to get its members elected to parliament. Its manifesto proposes abolishing all support for immigrants, registering the nationality of the country's inhabitants and confirming it on people's birth certificates and ID.

It also demands the Czech Republic withdraws from NATO and the EU. But the party’s supporters have their own interpretation.

A Czech ultra-nationalist, who didn’t want to be identified, told RT: “The Workers’ Party is the only real Czech Party that defends the Czechs and fights against drugs, crime and illegal immigrants. Our current regime works with the Jews who are a major evil. We also have problems with Roma people – we, the white people, end up working for them while they take social benefits.”

And despite objections from the city council, the gathering marched through the city and held a brief public demonstration with a large contingent of riot police on standby.

The exact number of those with far-right nationalist views in the Czech Republic is not known. Until now, the country's estimated three to five thousand right-wing radicals remained an insignificant fringe group without a strong centralised leadership or political backing.

But Czech right-wingers have recently begun trying to become more visible, promote their political ideas and overcome their political isolation – and seem to have got Germany’s National Democratic Party support.

“The main message is that we belong together! I tried to communicate that we, German nationalists, have solidarity with Czech nationalists and that we are happy to work together!” said Per Lennart Aae, member of the NPD executive council.