Neo-Nazi NPD Records Big Victory
in Suite Votes. Causes Wide Dismay
BONN (JTA)—West Germany's
nco-Nazi National Democratic
Party emerged from the Baden-
Wurttemburg state elections Sun-
day with 9.8 per cent of the total
vote cast assuring it of 12 seats
out of 120 in the next state parlia-
ment.
It was the most impressive dis-
play of electoral strength to date
by the party, whose extreme right-
wing nationalism and frequent ad-
vocacy of Hitlerian tenets have
caused widespread concern inside
and outside of Germany.
Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger
expressed fear Monday that the
Baden-Wurttemburg election re-
sults would damage West Ger-
many's image abroad. Several hun-
dred persons were reported to
have demonstrated in front of the
Baden-Wurttemburg Parliament in
Stuttgart with placards proclaiming
"10 per cent Nazi, our shame !"
The NPD, which espouses such
nationalistic causes as restoration
of Germany's pre-war borders and
the removal of foreign troops from
German soil, has been steadily
gaining political strength in state
elections. It has carefully avoided
the appearance of overt anti-
Semitism.
It polled 8.8 per cent of the vote
in the Bremen elections last Octo-
ber, 7.9 per cent in Hesse, 7.4 per
cent in Bavaria, 6.9 per cent on
the Rhineland Palatinate, 5.8 per
cent in Schleswig-Holstein and 7
per cent in Lower Saxony.
Sunday's election results are
regarded with particular dismay
because Baden-Wurttemburg
Germany's third largest state
with a population of 5,500,000,
is regarded as one of the most
politically liberal areas in the
nation. Political leaders said that
a success there • by the NPD
would constitute a danger signal.
A television commentator re-
called Sunday night that Baden-
Wurttemburg gave the Nazi
Party 10 per cent of its vote in
1930, three years before Hitler
took power.
In Israel, the press expressed
serious concern over the results
of the elections in Baden-Wurttem-
burg. Most papers called on the
government in Bonn to ban the
NPD lest the Federal Republic suc-
cumb to Nazism as the Weimar
Republic did a generation ago.
Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president
of the World Jewish Congress, who
initiated the negotiations with the
Bonn government that resulted in
the restitution agreements, ex-
pressed sorrow and anxiety over
the outcome of the German elec-
tions which gave the neo-Nazi
party representation in still an-
other German state. He told a
press conference here that "the
sensitivity of the Jewish people
to such phenomena is natural,"
and he warned that neo-Nazism
could jeopardize the democratic
character of West Germany.
The American Jewish Congress
said Monday that the NPD's elec-
tion success "cannot be dismissed
as routine or as reflecting merely
the normal percentage of ex-
tremist sentiment that may be
found in any electorate."
Dr. Joachim Prinz, immediate
past president of the Congress,
said that the election results
showed "a dangerous turn to
the right among substantial seg-
ments of West German public
opinion."
Dr. Prinz noted that previous
successes by the NPD in other
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
6—Friday, May 3, 1968
German states had "occurred in
regions long known to be vulner-
able to rightist sentiments." But
Sunday's victory, he said, "must
be considered a clear defeat of
those who had hoped that demo-
cracy at long last was taking root
and becoming a viable way of life
for the German people. If this
could have happened in reputedly
liberal Baden-Wurttemburg, then
one can only surmise with appre-
hension the state of German opin-
ion in other parts of the country."
The American Jewish Congress
leader criticized the "failure" of
West Germany's major educational
and political institutions to in-
culcate democratic values in the
people.
Arab League Envoy Visits
Jerusalem on 'Private Visit'
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Nasser
Aldin Nasahashibi, a well-known
Arab political writer who has
served as the Arab League's roving
ambassador in Europe, arrived
here from Amman on what he de-
scribed as a private visit. Nasha-
shibi, who was born in Palestine,
writes for Arab newspapers. main-
ly Egyptian. He crossed into Is-
rael via the Allenby Bridge.
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