The chairman of West Berlin’s Jewish community, the largest in Germany, urged West European leaders today to take coordinated, decisive action against the spread of neo-Nazi violence. The community leader, Heinz Galinski made his statement in the aftermath of Friday’s fatal bombing of a synagogue in Paris and the rash of rightwing terror in France West Germany and Italy.
Galinski charged that the French authorities were too soft in dealing with anti-Semitism. He has been warning for some time against rightwing and leftwing terrorism in Europe. West German police have uncovered terrorist plots against him and other Jewish leaders.
Meanwhile, the authorities are continuing to investigate links between the outlawed neo-Nazi Wehrsportsgruppe Hoffmann and the Palestine Liberation Organization. But inasmuch as the Bonn government is trying to woo the Arab states and the PLO, no official revelations are expected. Until now, disclosures about the Hoffmann group’s relations with the PLO have been confined to the media.
It has reportedly sold trucks and other equipment to the PLO. Karl Heinz Hoffmann, leader of the Wehrsportsgruppe Hoffmann, visited Damascus last July for talks with PLO officials, according to reports. Franz Josef Strauss, leader of the Christian Democrats and Premier of Bavaria, who was defeated yesterday in the national elections for Chancellor, revealed last week that Col. Muammar Quaddafi of Libya has made undisclosed sums of money available to Hoffmann and his supporters.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
