The Federal Internal Security Service denied yesterday a reported statement by one of its senior officials that East Germany was systematically aiding neo-Nazi groups in West Germany and “planting” neo-Nazi agents in the Federal Republic.
The charge was made by Gerhard Boedden, who heads the anti-terrorist division, during a seminar on international terrorism in Rome last week. Boedden said later that he was incorrectly quoted. But sources here confirmed that Boedden’s information was well known to the government but Bonn treated it in strictest confidence so as not to disturb delicate negotiations aimed at improving relations with the East German regime.
The sources said that members of the internal security services have been urging that the matter be brought into the open but were turned down by Interior Minister Gerhard Baum.
Boedden also stated in Rome that the Palestine Liberation Organization was training both neo-Nazi terrorists from Germany and leftist urban guerrillas. The official denial did not refer to that charge but only to the implication of East Germany and the Communist bloc countries in neo-Nazi activities in West Germany. The PLO in fact has been cited in several official documents released by the Bonn government as being involved in the training of neo-Nazis.
The conservative daily Die Welt said yesterday that it had proof that Boedden’s charges against East Germany were correct. It noted that Udo Albrecht, a neo-Nazi activist convicted for illegal possession of arms in June, 1981, escaped to East Germany which later rejected an extradition request from Bonn. According to Die Welt, the East Germans sent him to Lebanon.
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