Neo-Nazi Party Aide Arrested as East German Spy

Another West German citizen has been arrested on charges of spying for East Germany, Justice Ministry officials disclosed Thursday.

Officials declined to name the spy but said he was a 34-year-old salesman living in the Heilbronn area in southwestern Germany who is also an official of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party.

A Justice Ministry spokesman indicated that the accused spy had been involved in espionage for the East Germans since the late 1970s, providing them information on the activities of the far right-wing party.

10,000 Members

The party claims to have about 10,000 members. A demonstration by some of its members in Frankfurt last month that was opposed by left-wing groups led to the death of one leftist, who was run over by a police vehicle.

The death sparked a series of widespread but small-scale protests in major West German cities over the last two weeks.

Informed sources in Bonn said that it is unlikely that the new suspect would have access to state secrets, as did some of the high-level government officials who have been arrested here or who have defected to East Germany in the last two months.

But it was indicative, sources said, of East German interest in all fields of West German political life that they would have infiltrated the neo-Nazi party as well as the country’s major democratic parties.

Polish Territory

The neo-Nazi party seeks a reunited Germany with its pre-World War II borders, including large hunks of German territory that were ceded to Poland and the Soviet Union after the German defeat in 1945.

Government investigators said the arrest of the Heilbronn man had nothing to do with the earlier spying cases, which constituted the most serious espionage scandal in the history of the Federal Republic.

The suspect, said the government spokesman, had meetings with East German espionage controllers during the early 1980s. He passed on information about the neo-Nazi members of the party and in return received cash payments from the East Germans, the spokesman said.