Far-Right Party’s Platform Asks German Reunification

West Germany’s far-right Republicans party ended a two-day convention Sunday by adopting a national platform calling for immediate reunification of the two Germanys with Berlin as the capital.

Most of the 1,100 delegates at the meeting in the southern Bavarian city of Rosenheim raised their hands agreeing with the main proposal: the “re-establishment of Germany with Berlin as its legitimate capital.” Later, the delegates chanted, “Germany, united fatherland!”

The platform will carry the party into West Germany’s national election next December, but before that, the Republicans hope to take part in the first free election in East Germany on May 6.

Party founder Franz Schoenhuber, 66, a former sergeant in Adolf Hitler’s Waffen SS, had roused the delegates with his motto, “Reunification Now.”

Schoenhuber reiterated that the Republicans will seek official status as a party in East Germany to run candidates in May and predicted that the party will “blow away” the competition because the Republicans will be “more popular” there than in West Germany.

So far, Schoenhuber has been barred from even entering East Germany, and his party is not legal there. But he said that the Republicans will “find a way to circumvent every obstacle and participate in the election for the people’s Parliament.”

Schoenhuber predicted that the Republicans will poll at least 8% of the vote in December’s election here in the Federal Republic--well above the 5% necessary for representation in the Bundestag (Parliament).

About 5,000 demonstrators who believe that the Republicans are neo-Nazis marched past the meeting hall in Rosenheim, chanting “Nazis out!” and “Never again a German empire!” Hundreds of police stood by to prevent violence.