A senior official of West Germany’s internal security services has accused East Germany and the Palestine Liberation Organization of abetting neo-Nazi violence in the Federal Republic.
Gerhard Boedden, who heads the department combatting terrorist activities, charged at a seminar in Rome dealing with international terrorism, that the German Democratic Republic specifically and the Eastern European Communist bloc in general, knowingly and systematically support neo-Nazi groups in West Germany in order to portray it as a country wracked by right wing extremism.
Boedden also charged that the PLO has been training German neo-Nazi terrorists and leftwing urban guerrillas. His remarks, widely reported by the West German news media, disturbed officials here. They came at a time when Bonn is involved in difficult and sensitive efforts to improve ties with the East German regime.
Boedden’s implication of the PLO has also embarrassed Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s policy of wooing Arab states and organizations especially Saudi Arabia which is a major financial backer of the PLO. Although government officials have acknowledged, in response to parliamentary questions, that there has been military cooperation between German neo-Nazis and the PLO, they have tried to play down the issue.
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