3 More Youths Charged in German Arson Attack : Violence: Chancellor had said firebombing was unconnected to neo-Nazis. New developments suggest otherwise.

Three more youths with purported neo-Nazi ties were arraigned Friday in connection with a May 29 firebombing that killed five Turkish women and children in Germany’s worst racist attack since an epidemic of right-wing violence erupted two years ago.

Hundreds of thousands of Germans are expected to take to the streets today for nationwide protests against racism. Up to 50,000 demonstrators are expected in Solingen, site of the deadly arson attack.

A 16-year-old boy described as a member of the local neo-Nazi skinhead scene was arrested Sunday on murder charges, and three other youths, aged 16, 20 and 23, were taken into custody Thursday.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl asserted earlier that the Solingen attack was the work of a lone perpetrator without ties to the shadowy neo-Nazi movement, but the latest developments suggest otherwise.

German media described the suspects as known members of a local skinhead gang with neo-Nazi sympathies. The mother of one of the arrested youths was described by authorities as a politically active right-wing extremist, and there were unconfirmed reports that one of those arrested belonged to the far-right German People’s Union political party.

Federal Prosecutor Alexander von Stahl confirmed the arrests but declined to give details before a news conference scheduled for this morning. But members of the Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament, who were briefed Friday by the prosecutor on the Solingen case confirmed that racism appeared to be the motive behind the attack.

Cornelie Sonntag, opposition Social Democratic spokeswoman for the parliamentary committee on domestic affairs, told journalists that “contempt for foreigners and alcohol” played a role in the firebombing.

Government spokesman Dieter Vogel later issued a statement asserting that “the overwhelming majority of Germans sharply condemn anti-foreigner violence.”

Kohl, sharply criticized for refusing to attend the funeral for the Solingen victims Thursday, received a delegation from the Turkish government in Bonn and expressed his sympathy. A spokesman at the Turkish Embassy, Cavlan Kalyt, described the meeting as “very positive” and said Turkey would “wait to see what concrete” steps are taken to halt right-wing violence in Germany.

In Tasova, Turkey, about 200 miles northeast of the capital, Ankara, several thousand people attended the burial of the five victims, who were all from one family, according to the Associated Press. German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel told the crowd that Germans will never forgive those responsible for the attack. Nearby, a few hundred demonstrators chanted anti-Nazi slogans and burned two Nazi flags.

More than 2,000 incidents of right-wing violence were reported in Germany last year, resulting in 17 deaths, including those of 10 foreigners. Authorities have logged more than 700 attacks already this year, and Solingen brought the 1993 death toll to eight.

Last Saturday’s attack, described by President Richard von Weizsaecker as an act of “anarchistic terrorism,” was the second such tragedy to hit Germany’s sizable Turkish community in less than six months. Three members of a Turkish family were killed last December in the northern town of Moelln when their apartment was firebombed. A caller reporting the attack to police shouted, “Heil Hitler!” before hanging up.

Two German youths, ages 19 and 25, are on trial for murder in the Moelln case. Both have recanted earlier confessions but admitted in court that they belonged to a loosely knit gang of neo-Nazi skinheads.