Hate Crimes Drop, but Bonn Fears Alliances of Neo-Nazis : Germany: Numbers are still above last year’s. Closer cooperation among rightist groups is reported.

The German government reported Tuesday that hate crimes dropped sharply in July from the previous month, but that news was overshadowed by new fears that scattered neo-Nazi groups have begun to organize for the first time.

Racially motivated crimes dropped more than 60%, with authorities reporting 495 incidents in July, including 30 cases of arson and 45 of assault. The statistics represent all hate crimes against foreigners and Jews, ranging from deadly beatings to the toppling of tombstones at cemeteries.

But government officials and watchdog groups took little comfort in the numbers, in part because they remain alarmingly high. Despite the decline in July, reported incidents this year continue at twice the rate for the comparable period in 1992, authorities said. So far this year, seven people have been killed in right-wing attacks.

Predictions of stepped-up violence by neo-Nazi gangs are not new, but they gained greater urgency this week when a high-ranking government official disclosed that the militant right-wing groups have started to cooperate more closely.

The head of Germany’s internal security agency said in a nationwide television interview that some of the country’s estimated 42,000 neo-Nazis have formed “action alliances,” which he described as the possible foundation for a countrywide network.

Until now, attacks by extreme right-wing groups have been characterized by officials as sporadic and spontaneous, unlike the well-orchestrated terrorism of left-wing radicals over the past two decades.

The new alliances “are the first signs of a network,” said Eckart Werthebach, head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. “The aim, in fact, is to form a united front.”

Werthebach said his agency has launched a massive undercover operation in hopes of infiltrating the neo-Nazi groups, which he said provided clear evidence of their emerging unity last month during a rally in the western state of Hesse.

About 500 neo-Nazis from across Germany converged on a highway rest stop to mark the sixth anniversary of the death of Rudolf Hess, one of Hitler’s closest associates. Police had turned out in great numbers in several other states to break up expected gatherings despite a nationwide ban, but the right-wing extremists paraded freely into the town of Fulda, where police claim to have been caught off guard.

Hans-Gert Lange, spokesman for the security agency, said Tuesday that efforts to infiltrate the rightist groups have been difficult because there are so many of them scattered throughout the country. Even if undercover agents were to gain membership in the bigger groups, he said, there are countless other violent gangs that would go unchecked.

“There are, in every large city, small groups that have no organizational connection to other small groups,” Lange said. “We can’t infiltrate all of them.”

In an opinion article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, Germany’s interior minister called on all Germans to join the struggle against racism and intolerance, which began to surge three years ago after German unification.

Interior Minister Manfred Kanther also urged authorities to ban new neo-Nazi symbols that have replaced the outlawed swastika. Last weekend, Brandenburg state outlawed Germany’s former imperial war flag.

“These things must be stopped at the outset,” Kanther wrote. “All the forces in politics and society, in the media, schools and our families are called upon to fight the roots of extremist violence.”