Neo-Nazi Political Party Outlawed by W. Germany

The West German government banned a neo-Nazi political party Thursday in what was widely seen here as a move to allay fears about a new surge of far-right extremism.

The crackdown on the group called the National Assembly came after police confiscated arms and propaganda material, including posters of Adolf Hitler, in raids conducted in six West German states.

Interior Minister Friedrich Zimmermann declared that the group, founded last July, has “pursued its aims in a particularly aggressive, belligerent way.” He added: “The group has attraction for people in the whole neo-Nazi scene. This strike against neo-Nazis should be seen as an unmistakable warning signal. West Germany will not be a playing field for right-wing extremism.”

National attention has focused on a possible resurgence of far-right parties since the election triumph of the Republicans party in the West Berlin city-state election Jan. 29. The Republicans won 7.5% of the vote and pushed the Free Democratic Party below the 5% necessary for representation in the city Senate.

The Republicans campaigned on a nationalistic platform, which carried strong anti-foreign overtones in West Berlin, a city with 150,000 Turkish workers. West Germany as a whole has also been flooded with foreign asylum-seekers.

The leader of the banned group is Michael Kuehnen, West Germany’s most notorious neo-Nazi, who has been jailed several times for promoting Nazi policies.

Police said they searched an apartment in Frankfurt that serves as the group’s headquarters and found pistols, knifes and ammunition there. Elsewhere, they seized Nazi propaganda leaflets, portraits of Hitler, swastika banners and stickers with anti-foreigners slogans in 41 National Assembly offices and apartments in Hesse, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Bavaria.

The Republicans, whose election success in Berlin has focused attention on right-wing groups, were founded by Franz Schoenhuber, 66, a former Nazi and SS officer, in the southern state of Bavaria, an area noted for its archconservatism and fierce German nationalism.

Interior Minister Zimmermann, a member of the Bavarian branch of the Christian Democrats, declined to classify the Republicans as dangerous or “extremist.” But he acted a day after about 5,000 Republicans and their supporters held an election celebration at the party’s annual rally in Cham, a small town in eastern Bavaria near the Czechoslovak border.

Schoenhuber declared: “We are proud to be Germans. This is our hour. Now it’s our turn.”

The former journalist, who was fired from his job with Bavarian broadcasting after he glorified the Nazi period in his memoirs, went out of his way to criticize Heinz Galinski, leader of West Germany’s 30,000-member Jewish community. He said there were Jewish authors, composers and painters “whom I like.” But he added: “I don’t have to like Mr. Galinski. Mr. Galinski sabotages German-Jewish reconciliation.”

Speaks About Horrors

Galinski, 76, a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp, frequently speaks about the horrors of the Nazi period and the Holocaust. He has warned against anti-Semitism and neo-Nazi movements and denounced the Republicans success in the West Berlin election.

The Republicans say they now have 8,000 to 9,000 members and their ranks are growing daily, as is their political power. The Wickert Institute, in a public opinion sampling, recently found that the party would poll 11.5% of the national vote if nationwide elections were held.

Spelling out his position at the party rally, Schoenhuber declared that he and his party are not pro-Nazi or anti-Semitic.

“The Nazis brought us the worst chapter of our history,” he said. “We don’t want another Hitler. But we can’t allow our history to be reduced to Auschwitz. Today’s young generation of Germans bears no more guilt for Auschwitz than the sons and daughters of Americans who committed genocide at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

Many political analysts believe that the far right was strengthened in West Germany, particularly in Bavaria, with the death last year of Bavarian leader Franz Josef Strauss, who attracted right-wing nationalists while hewing to a pragmatic, conservative line.

Further, the rise of the right comes at a time when the center-right coalition of Chancellor Helmut Kohl is in disarray, charged with lacking leadership and bogged down by such controversies as the shipments by West German companies of technology and raw materials for chemical weapons plants to Libya and Iraq.

Kohl is under fire from conservatives for not taking a stronger stand on asylum-seekers, who compete for jobs in a tight employment market. His government is also criticized by the left for going along with the Atlantic Alliance’s insistence on the modernization of short-range nuclear missiles.

Further, the right-wing of the Christian Democrats are strongly critical of their Free Democratic Party partners, particularly the detente policies pursued by their leader, Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who is seeking greater accord with the Soviet Union and East Germany.

Rancorous differences among the coalition partners, analysts here say, have contributed to the attraction of the Republicans for voters in recent months.

“The resurgence on the fringes always reflects shortcomings of the major parties,” observed political commentator Manfred Schell.

“We may be going through just another phase of far-right activity that will pass,” added one diplomatic analyst here. “But not until the ruling coalition in Bonn shows more strength, cohesion and direction.”