[Previous entry: "Jewish cemetary requiring state-funded refurbishment is conveniently vandalized"] [Next entry: "Making a killing from the food crisis"]

04/30/2008: "Second thoughts by politicians about banning NPD incase it makes them stronger"

Germany has long talked about banning the neo-Nazi NPD party. But an attempt to do so is about to fail because Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives say such a bid could strengthen the party.

Germany's second attempt to ban the far-right National Democratic Party looks doomed before it has even begun because a number of conservative-ruled states are refusing to cooperate in mounting a legal bid against the party.

Germany tried to ban the NPD before, in 2003, but the country's highest court threw out the case because it was based partly on testimony from informants in the NPD recruited by the domestic intelligence service.That failure was a major embarassment to the government and emboldened the NPD which did well in several subsequent regional elections, crossing 5 percent hurdles to win seats in the eastern state parliaments of Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

NPD flags and symbols are unmistakably similar to Nazi paraphernalia, and party members are on record praising Hitler and his henchmen. And in a bid to broaden its support, the party has been recruiting members of the violent neo-Nazi scene into its leadership and has joined forces with the far-right German People's Union (DVU) party.

[ Nationalism cannot so easily be defeated, and is getting ever stronger. ]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,544602,00.html