A leader of Germany’s major neo-Nazi party, who was slated to hold a press conference here tomorrow, was denied the use of a hall in the Hotel Commodore here because the management feared the effect of a possible picket line. Adolf von Thadden, deputy chairman of the West German National Democratic Party, was also unable to reserve the Overseas Press Club for a news conference "because of prior bookings."
Both the hotel and the club said today that the efforts to set up a news conference for von Thadden had been made by Kurt Ehm, of Hopatcong, N. J., who had termed himself as "a correspondent for West German newspapers." Ehm is not known to any of the West German information centers in New York or at the United Nations. A United Nations accreditation officer said today the man does not hold full time U.N. press accreditation, "although he may have been here on a temporary basis."
Several of the sources checked said they had information to the effect that he was a correspondent for or contributor to the Deutsche National und Soldatenzeitung, a West German newspaper frequently labeled by Bonn officials as pro-Nazi, and to the official organ of the NDP, published at Hanover, West Germany.
Dr. Max Nussbaum, chairman of the American section of the World Jewish Congress, who recently returned from a 10-day visit to West Germany, said von Thadden had attended a conference of Fascist leaders in Venice in 1962, and had signed a "protocol" to create "a national European party."
Commenting on von Thadden’s political affiliation, Dr. Nussbaum said the party shuns outright attacks on German Jews because today this would not give the party "a nice image," but it calls for attacks on Israel, instead. The party also urges, Dr. Nussbaum said, an end to the war crimes trials and an end to compensation and reparation payments to Hitler’s victims. The NDP, Dr. Nussbaum added, had evoked "deep concern but not undue worry" by its recent electoral successes. He expressed "astonishment," however, over the views of Cardinal Frings of Cologne, who attributed the rise of Hitlerism to a disproportionate number of Jews in business, education, the arts and "every area of German life."
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
