In preparation for next September’s national elections, various right-wing groups in West Germany have begun maneuvering themselves into new units. At the same time, however, steps are under way to ban at least one of the existing anti-Semitic groups, the German Reichspartei.
Schleswig-Holstein Premier Kai Uwe von Hassel was reported today to have notified the German Reichspartei’s state chairman of a move to obtain a court order declaring the party illegal in the state. The party considers itself the successor of the Socialist Reichspartei, which the German Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in 1952. Some of its leaders have been charged with delivering anti-Semitic speeches “dangerous to the order of the legal state.”
The German Gemeinschaft (German Community Party), a political grouping considered neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic, held its national convention at Nuremberg yesterday, and voted to run candidates in all German states in next September’s national elections to the Bundestag, lower house of Parliament.
With 540 delegates attending, the party adopted a platform in which one plank demands that the International Court of Justice “make an end to show trials like the trial of Adolf Eichmann now being held in Jerusalem. “
The German Gemeinschaft is the rival group of the German Reichspartei. At present, it has no representatives in the Bundestag, but it does hold several municipal council seats in several towns in Bavaria. The party re-elected August Hausleiter as its chairman. He was formerly a functionary in the Nazi Party.
At another convention yesterday, at Langes, near Frankfurt, a new ultra-national group was formed under the title of Reich Soldiers Association. This group declared itself dedicated to the “rehabilitation of old comrades unjustly persecuted after the war.” The association elected as its president a former German Army colonel under the Nazi regime, Walter Dahl.
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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.
