A new extreme right-wing organization calling itself the New Right Party, was launched in Munich today by Siegfried Poehlmann, a lawyer who had headed the Bavarian chapter of the reputedly neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD). Poehlmann broke with the NPD at the Bavarian chapter’s caucus today after he delivered a statement denouncing Adolf Von Thadden, former chairman of the NPD, and his successor, Martin Mussgnug, who is regarded as relatively moderate by rightist standards.
Poehlmann, known as an extremist who decries the parliamentary process, said the new party would work outside the parliamentary framework. He stated at his first press conference as leader of the New Right Party that its efforts would be directed against both the new and the traditional Left and its ideology would be “anti-Marxist Socialism.”
The NPD failed to win a single seat in the Bundestag in West Germany’s last general elections and has since lost its seats in the various state legislatures. A recent Gallup poll showed that no more than one percent of the German electorate supported or sympathized with the NPD. When Mussgnug took over party leadership from the retiring Von Thadden last fall he promised to change the party’s extremist image.
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