The city of Frankfurt is standing pat on its decision not to rent public halls to the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD), thereby defying two municipal court orders handed down last month. City officials intend to take their case before higher courts.
The authorities in Frankfurt are apparently alarmed by the NPD’s intention to make the city a center of extreme rightwing political activity in Germany. City officials were surprised by the strong media coverage both in this country and abroad of a meeting earlier in the year of a former SS unit in a town-owned public hall in Bad Hersfeld. Since then, Bad Hersfeld officials announced that they will not allow meetings of former SS members in their town.
The NPD has successfully argued in the courts that since it is a legal organization operating openly, Frankfurt is obliged to make its public halls available to the party for conventions and other political activities.
But Frankfurt officials have repeatedly stated that they are guided by the fact that the NPD is classified by the federal internal security service as an extreme rightwing group.
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