Liberal groups in the United States were urged last night to help the West German Government overcome “an ominous and growing national mood of neo-Nazi sentiment.”
Dr. Joachim Prinz, chairman of the commission on international affairs of the American Jewish Congress, who returned recently from a visit to West Germany, called on American educators, labor leaders, businessmen and students to establish “close and continuing contacts” with their counterparts in West Germany in order to aid the Bonn Government in making democracy work, Dr. Prinz spoke at a “public briefing” here sponsored by the American Jewish Congress and attended by more than 1, 000 persons.
Asserting that the recently formed West German coalition government was “concerned” about the growth of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party, but uncertain on how to meet the situation, Dr. Prinz said that Chancellor Kurt-Georg Kiesinger, “despite his Nazi past, is in my opinion dedicated to strengthening freedom and democracy in Germany.”
He warned, however, that the fact that a former Nazi could be named Chancellor “has given vast encouragement to those forces in Germany who demand that the past be forgotten and who insist that Germany be restored to her ‘place in the sun.”
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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.
