Neo-nazi Group Claims It Killed West German Official

West German police have no clues yet in the murder of Heinz-Herbers Karry, the Economic Minister of the State of Hesse, who was shot to death in his home in Karlsrune Monday. Although the Third Reich Movement, a neo-Nazi organization, claimed responsibility for the killing, the Federal Prosecutor said at a press conference today that he does not believe it was in any way connected with the crime.

Karry, 61, had a Jewish father and members of his family perished in the Holocaust. He himself spent part of the Nazi era in a concentration camp. His murder was the second this month that has police in Germany and Austria puzzled as to whether there were political or racial motivations. A prominent Socialist official of the Vienna municipal government was fatally shot there on May 1. The victim, Heinz Nittel, 50 was not Jewish but he was president of the Austria-Israel Friendship Society.

Subsequently, a leaflet was received by Vienna police claiming that a group calling itself the National Palestine Liberation Movement, had “executed” Nittel because he was a “Zionist.” But Austrian police doubt there was any connection between that group, believed to be a break-away from the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the assassination.

The PLO representative in Vienna deplored the killing and said he had never heard of the Palestine Liberation Movement. Police believe it was using the assassination to attract attention to itself.

Meanwhile, the investigation into the murder of Karry is being conducted under the supervision of Federal officials, a routine when terrorist involvement is suspected. The murder weapon was found to have been a gun stolen from a U.S. military installation in 1970.

German police are still investigating the murders of a Jewish publisher and his female companion who were found dead in the latter’s home in Nuremburg last December. As with the latest killings, the police are not certain that there were political motivations.