If the West German National Democratic Party, a neo-Nazi group, violates the Bonn constitution, “it will be banned, ” the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany today informed the Toronto Citizens Committee Concerned With Neo-Nazism in West Germany.
The message was in reply to a petition delivered to the West German consulate here citing neo-Nazi trends. It was drawn up following a mass meeting attended by 6,000 last week, to protest a scheduled television appearance of the NDP’s deputy chairman, Adolf von Thadden.
Sharp opposition forced cancellation of von Thadden “live” participation in a program over the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation network, but an interview with the neo-Nazi leader, taped in Germany, was presented instead.
In its prompt reply to the committee’s protest, the West German Government said the NDP has so far avoided overt violation of the constitution “in word or deed.” “However,” the Bonn statement went on to say, “should the party show unconstitutional intentions, a ban by the Federal Constitutional Court would immediately follow.”
Meanwhile, the Canadian press continued today to criticize severely the Government-owned CBC for its handling of the von Thadden interview. The Observer of Sarnia, Ont., headlined an editorial “Canadian Viewers Don’t Need von Thadden,” stating that taxpayers should not subsidize “sensationalism” and that “the CBC should be spending its dollars to explore issues that relate directly to the Canadian people.”
The von Thadden broadcast, in the opinion of the News Chronicle of Port Arthur, Ont., was “feeble and one-sided.” The paper complained that there was no exploration on the program of von Thadden’s political ideas, or of anti-Semitism. A third newspaper, the St. Thomas Times Journal, disputed the CBC’s contention that the program was presented in deference to the principle of free speech for a minority group, and asked “who says this is a minority group?”
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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.
