West Germany’s extremist, right-wing groups, many of them preaching “radicalism and anti-Semitism” and urging plans for dictatorship and world domination, pose no threat to “the existence of our liberal and democratic order, ” Minister of the Interior Herman Hoeschel declared here today.
Dr. Hoeschel made his comments as a result of a new Ministry report showing that, while membership in the right-wing groups has decreased since 1961 by 8,000, the number of such organizations has grown from 86 to 112. Circulation of the publications issued by the groups, the report showed, has increased from 160,000 to 192,000. However, the data showed, the extremists have not a single daily newspaper in the country, and only about a third of their members paid up their dues in 1962.
Nevertheless, the report added, the vigilance of officials would not lesson. The Ministry affirmed that all threats and molestations of “our Jewish fellow-citizens” were not only noted but also pursued both by police and the courts.
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