Germany’s leading far-right political group, the National Democratic party, was in turmoil on Friday following a string of defections in the party’s heartland region.

A senior NPD politician in Saxony, eastern Germany, left the party and requested police protection from neo-Nazi attacks. The defection of Jürgen Schön, a former NPD regional chairman, brings to three the number of NPD legislators who have left the party this week, cutting the size of its parliamentary group in Saxony from 12 to nine.