The director of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), senior partner in the next West German coalition Government, warned yesterday that the ultra right-wing National Democratic Party (NPD) must still be taken seriously despite its resounding defeat in the Sept. 28 national election. Hans Jurgen Wischnewski said at a press conference that the 4.3 percent of the vote polled by the NPD, while short of the percentage required to enter the Bundestag, was nevertheless double the vote claimed by the party in the 1965 Federal elections.
Mr. Wischnewski hinted that the new Government might seek a constitutional ban on the NPD. Asked if steps would be taken to outlaw the party he replied that if the Interior Ministry was to make a request to that effect, the Government would not accordingly. He said that as a result of the elections, the NPD would lose ground in local contests. He said he was opposed in principle to the violent anti-NPD demonstrations that greeted the right-wingers almost everywhere during the late election campaign.
The reputedly neo-Nazi party meanwhile has been forced to shift the site of its forthcoming convention from West Berlin to Hanover. The convention was to have opened in West Berlin Oct. 25. But Mayor Klaus Schutz petitioned the Allied occupying powers (Britain, France and the U.S.) to prohibit the gathering. They agreed on grounds that it might lead to disturbances.
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