Emergence Of German N.D.P. Concerns U.K.

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31224, 23 November 1966, Page 21

Emergence Of German N.D.P. Concerns U.K.

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, November 22. British national newspapers and television are examining the emergence of the German National Democratic Party, often accused of being a neoNazi group.

Writing in the “Evening Standard” James Cameron said it seemed to be a law of nature that something which “gives the world the creeps” should arise in Germany every 20 years.

“Yesterday, the N.D.P. until this year an insignificant distasteful and faintly absurd party of what is called the ‘radical Right,’ won a startling 15 seats in Bavaria. “They have done this, and continue to do so, on an overt programme of all the mad and shadowy values that Germany is said to have renounced

with the aberrations of the last generation.” The party’s chairman is Fritz Thielen, but its leader is a former panzer officer, Adolf von Thadden.

“Do not concern yourself about the Jews,” von Thadden told Cameron. “Germany no longer has a Jewish problem.

“In all the country there are only about 30,000 left, and they are mostly old. The

young ones go away. It no longer preoccupies us.” On the 8.8.C.’s Panorama programme today Adolf von Thadden was interviewed. Viewers throughout Britain saw N.D.P. members singing “Deutschland Über Alles” and carrying standards with the party initials. In spite of its success in Bavaria, the N.D.P. got less votes in towns such as Munich and Nuremberg where Hitler and his Brown Shirts made their first successes, Clin Frame said in the “Evening News.” “If there were a Nazi revival, you would expect it here. “But in Munich’s Burgerbraukeller today, where Hitler launched his evil movement, they just don’t want to know as they down their beer,” Frame said. The Christian and Social Democrats together could overthrow any real threat

from the N.D.P., Frame said. “The Times” had a report which said that sensible German opinion was worried about what it considered a “quite exaggerated” reaction in the outside world to the party’s success. The rumpus outside Germany about the “ludicrous” success only encouraged the party end increased its attractivenc ' in the eyes of many German voters. “One result of the Bavarian elections which is certainly as important as the success of the N.D.P. is the strengthened position here of Franz Josef Strauss, leader of the Christian Social Union. “Mr Strauss’s line has been that what he calls a ‘healthy nationalistic feeling,’ must be allowed to revive now in Germany, and that the ‘day of forgiveness’ has come to former Nazis, even those ‘with blood on their fingers’.” It seemed likely that Strauss was campaigning to capture the support of all those who had voted for the party, “The Times” said. The success of Mr Thielen’s party had reminded the world of early Nazis days, but it had more in common with Poujade of France and Barry Goldwater of the United States, than Hitler, David Shears said in the “Daily Telegraph.”