A member of the Frankfurt City Council resigned Wednesday, hours after Interior Minister Gottfried Milde of the after Interior Minister Gottfried Milde of the federal state of Hesse brought charges against him for making a pernicious anti-Semitic remark.
The neo-Nazi National Democratic Party, which created a stir by polling 6.6 percent of the municipal vote in the Frankfurt elections on March 12.
But the NPD joined other parties in condemning Gutjahr’s remarks and said it would move to expel him.
Both the public prosecutor in Frankfurt and the central council of Jews in Germany, the umbrella organization of Jewish communities in West Germany, have initiated legal action against Gutjahr for alleged incitement against Jews.
The NPD councilman was quoted in an interview published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung last week as saying, “The Jews are robbing us again.”
He also attacked President Richard von Weizsacker of West Germany, a dedicated anti-Nazi and fried of the Jewish community.
Frankfurt has the largest Jewish population of any city in the Federal Republic. The Central council of Jews said Gutjahr’s remarks were a sign of the danger of allowing extreme right-wing and neo-Nazi parties to penetrate the municipal legislature.
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