Mayor Klaus Schutz of West Berlin today defended his city’s appeal to the post-war Allied occupying powers to bar the extreme right-wing National Democratic Party from establishing a branch there. In an interview published in the magazine, Die Welt, Mayor Schutz said “we cannot wait for a decision by the Federal Government. We had to ask the Allies to take a decision on the NPD.”
The appeal to ban the reputedly neo-Nazi party from West Berlin was contained in a letter from Mayor Schutz to the commandants of the United States, British and French occupation forces. The letter was sent with the approval of the Berlin Senate (city government) but it aroused criticism in Bonn political circles which maintained that any action against the NPD should be uniform throughout West Germany, not piecemeal. The Federal Government has proposed a ban on the party but must first argue its case before the Constitutional High Court in Karlsruhe.
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