And Switzerland, like England, played host to exiles who came and went with considerable freedom.No wonder, then, that anti-foreigner feeling ran high in many places.
In Freital, where many say the rise of Communism in East Germany and the disenchantment that followed sparked today's right-wing backlash, anti-foreigner feeling has been encouraged by members of the region's Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against Islamification of the West) movement.
To others, Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD) - or Alternative for Germany - is a dangerous populist force, whipping up anti-foreigner feeling, and giving right-wing extremist ideology a respectable face.
In the late 1990's, after Osama bin Laden began making his pronouncements that infidels should be driven from the Arabian peninsula, foreigners began feeling menaced, a feeling that deepened after Sept. 11.
It's quite natural for me to live here, feeling English, and not feel a foreigner at all".
But recent violence in Kabul — including deadly attacks at La Taverna restaurant and the Serena Hotel, as well as a guesthouse used by foreigners — left expats there feeling on edge.
"People are feeling overwhelmed by foreigners, they fear to lose their heimat," AFD founding member Alexander Gauland told VICE News.
Those drafted included British subjects, the large majority of whom indignantly refused to report, feeling that as foreigners they should be exempted.
Who could blame foreigners for feeling that these candidates were the political equivalents of genetically modified food?
I drive, and trust cars, while feeling a bit of a foreigner to them.
