A situation comparable to that which prevailed in Germany just before the Nazi Party won its first seats in the Reichstag in 1932, appears to be building in the Federal Republic, according to Dr. Eugen Gerstenmaier, president of the Bundestag, West Germany’s lower house.
In a press interview today, Dr. Gerstenmaier predicted that the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party, an extreme right-wing, nationalist party that espouses Hitler-like tenets, is certain to win seats in the Bundestag in the 1969 elections. He said that normally, the NPD would have little chance of entering the parliament. But left-wing activities have convinced many German voters that the greatest danger is from leftist radicals and that the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats who make up the national coalition government are unable to cope with them, he said. It was fear of the German Communist Party and the impotence of the Weimar Government that gave the upstart Nazi Party 37 percent of the German vote 36 years ago. The NPD scored successfully in municipal elections last Sunday in Westphalia.
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