Incitement Charge Against Former SS Officer Dropped

Prosecutors on Thursday dropped a criminal investigation of Franz Schoenhuber, a former Waffen-SS officer and radical-right leader who had publicly blamed Jewish leaders for a rise in anti-Semitism in Germany.

The public prosecutor’s office in Landshut, in the southern state of Bavaria, said Schoenhuber’s verbal attack on leaders of the Central Council of Jews, Ignatz Bubis and Michel Friedman, was directed at two public figures and could not be interpreted as a general incitement to race hatred--a crime in Germany.

Friedman called the decision “either cynical or naive” and said it benefited rightist extremists.

The announcement came on the heels of a decision by the English Football Assn. on Wednesday to cancel a soccer match with Germany in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium on April 20--the 105th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s birthday.

The English group said the game would have been “a focus for disorder” and an “unnecessary flash point” for violence from Nazis, anti-Nazis and soccer hooligans. British officials said common sense had prevailed.

But German newspapers Thursday condemned the move as a victory for rightist extremists.

“Disgrace! Why did you crumble before the Nazis?” asked the Bild tabloid, Germany’s largest daily. “A Goal for Adolf,” the Berliner Zeitung said in the headline to its main editorial. “Right-wing extremists have shown how to win a game without even playing.”

The government believes rightists were responsible for the March 25 firebombing of a synagogue in Luebeck, northern Germany, one of the worst attacks on a synagogue since the Third Reich.

After the fire, Bubis criticized rightists for inciting anti-Semitism and creating a climate for such attacks. He called Schoenhuber, leader of the radical-right Republikaner party, “a mental arsonist.”

Schoenhuber, the most serious leader for right-wing extremism in Germany since the Third Reich, responded that Bubis was “one of those most responsible for provoking anti-Semitism” and called him “the worst inciter of hatred in the country.” He tried to file his own race-hate lawsuit against Bubis and later included Friedman in his accusations.

Politicians and community leaders expressed outrage at Schoenhuber’s taboo comments and called for legal action against the 71-year-old party chief, whose memoirs, “I Took Part,” describe his life as a Waffen-SS sergeant and member of Hitler’s personal guard. Prosecutors launched a criminal investigation in Landshut, near where Schoenhuber had made the comments.

But the public prosecutor’s statement Thursday said that, while Schoenhuber’s comments were an insult, they were “against Mr. Bubis and Mr. Friedman alone” and “cannot be regarded as a statement about Jews living in Germany.” Therefore, the prosecutors said, it does not amount to inciting racial hatred.