The German government has banned a paramilitary neo-Nazi organization called the Viking Youth.
Last week’s ban on the group was accompanied by police raids throughout Germany to search the homes of the group’s 400 members.
While no arrests were reported, police seized bank accounts, weapons and neo- Nazi propaganda from the members’ homes.
Viking Youth, which was founded in 1952, advocates the elimination of the current German government, by violence if necessary, and replacing it with a Nazi state.
Announcing the ban on Nov. 10, Interior Minister Manfred Kanther said the group has been giving paramilitary training to young Germans and indoctrinating them with Nazi ideology.
“Germany is not an exercise ground for extremists of any kind,” Kanther said.
Members advocate requiring Jews to wear a yellow star on their clothes and call for restrictive immigration laws to protect the “substance of the German people.”
Germany banned three other neo-Nazi groups – the National Front, the German Alternative and the National Offensive – in late 1992.
The Born government has repeatedly come under attack in recent months for being too soft on right-wing extremists.
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