An East German court meted out short prison sentences Saturday for four young neo-Nazis convicted of assault and battery in racial incidents.
Meanwhile, the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party in West Germany filed an application with the Allied Powers in West Berlin for permission to participate in the city’s municipal elections in January.
The four East German youths, ranging in age from 19 to 21, received terms of from nine to 12 months from the court in Koenigs-Wusterhausen, near East Berlin, for attacking youths in discotheques while making some of them “confess” to being Jewish. The names of the four youths were not released.
In West Berlin, observers and town officials say that the neo-Nazi NPD party has no chance of getting permission to run in the January municipal elections.
The West Berlin chairman of the NPD, Lutz Reichel, protested Saturday against what he called the intervention of the Allied Powers in what were conceived as free elections in West Berlin. Reichel complained that the Allies have the power to strip citizens of their “elementary rights.”
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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.
