> not silenced and swept under the rug pretending it doesn't exist as that just makes the problem worse.

Ironically there's a common misconception that Germany overcame its Nazi past through a process of "Denazification". Instead what happened was that while there were plenty of trials of former NSDAP members they usually resulted in hardly any consequences and frequently people were even able to go back into public offices because a lot of the evidence was deliberately swept under the rug. The biggest outcome instead was that "right-wing" became a dirty word by becoming synonymous with "nazi", so conservatives would go on referring to themselves as the "political center" while completely ignoring the role the Christliche Mitte (a Christian conservative party that strongly resembled the modern Union) played in Hitler's rise to power and the passing of the Enablement Act to reign in the lefties. Oh and of course for good measure we banned nazi symbols and slogans, which has led to "conservative" activists flying the flag of the German Empire (which shares the same colors and also pre-dates the Weimar Republic, which conservatives at the time saw as a leftist perversion).

And because most people on the far right are smart enough not to show up bald-headed in jack boots, camo jackets and flying the flag of the German Empire anymore, we're now at the point where the same people applauding for suggestions that immigrants should be shot at the border instead fly the German flag and talk about "protecting families" and "protecting our values". Basically our far right has arrived at the same point as the American far right (as laid out in the infamous leaked audio of a politician saying that you can't openly talk about Black people anymore so you instead have to talk about more abstract things like "urban crime" to still talk about Black people). And worryingly the "centrist" conservatives have over the past eight years or so adopted some of the same talking points and one of the conservative Union front-runners jokingly described his party as "an alternative for Germany" (AfD means "Alternative for Germany").

So yes, outright censorship doesn't work. The problem isn't the symbolism, the problem is the ideology. They will just move on to new symbols and new talking points if you don't stomp out the ideology. But don't worry: Germany will never stomp out the ideology of the far right. If we couldn't do it after the Holocaust, I don't think it will ever happen.

And while we're on a detour (because there obviously is no point in addressing anything you say given that you've now twice reframed what I said to presumably argue against someone not present in this conversation): the other day I was near the train station and passed a homeless person when something caught my eye: in the middle of the plaza was a large art installation celebrating tolerance and inclusion. It was covered by a lot of verbiage meant to spark conversation among passers-by and "enable dialogues" or whatever the cool kids do with political art these days. The entire thing was sponsored by a federal ministry and some German NGOs, for some reason there were also some leaflets about seasonal food although I'm not sure how that fits into the overall messaging about queer identities and immigrants. But I digress. After inspecting the art piece for a bit, I came across one headline on a poster board containing some wisdom about loving your neighbor: "Where does the idea that some people deserve more than others come from?"