By
The Associated Press
BERLIN - The German government yesterday approved an effort to outlaw an extreme-right party that has been compared to the Nazis and blamed for fueling an alarming surge in hate crimes.
The Cabinet supported a proposal to ask the country's highest court to ban the National Democratic Party, the most visible action yet in its struggle to stem the largest resurgence of neo-Nazi activity since reunification in 1990.
"This is a party that generates violence," Interior Minister Otto Schily told reporters after the Cabinet approved the proposed ban on the party, widely known by its German initials, NPD.
"There is an essential kinship between the Nazis and the NPD - and it seeks that out in politics, party colors and choice of language," Schily said.
The NDP is politically insignificant, but Schily compared outlawing the group with the ban placed on the Nazis in 1923, when they were a small group. That ban was later lifted, however, and Hitler gained power in 1933.
At least three people have died this year in attacks motivated by racial bias or other forms of hate. Officials say neo-Nazis are becoming more violent and the number of reported anti-Semitic crimes is rising.
"Forbidding a party is one action in the fight against right-wing extremism - but not the only one," Schily said. He said other steps would include tougher policing and possibly changes in laws on demonstrations.
The Cabinet's approval came after an overwhelming vote by governors of Germany's 16 states to seek a ban. The upper house of parliament is expected Friday to give its consent tomorrow.
Less certain is approval in the lower house, which won't debate the proposal for another two weeks at least. Schily said he hopes to file the ban motion in the Federal Constitutional Court before the end of the year.
A 74-page summary of the government's case cites NPD documents and party officials talking of recruiting skinheads as "political soldiers" who will fight a "war on the streets" to restore a "Volksgemeinschaft" or national community - a word associated with Nazi definitions of Germanness.
The party teaches classes in Nazi ideology to members of its youth wing and has links to neo-Nazi Web pages on its home page, the summary released yesterday said.
The government also said the party uses crude anti-immigrant invective and complains that "international Judaism" is preventing Germany from closing the book on its Nazi past.
Some officials have expressed doubt that advocates will be able to meet the constitution's stringent requirements for a party ban - and say a failed attempt would only strengthen the NPD. Schily said there is enough evidence.
Germany has banned only two other parties since World War II: a successor to the Nazis in 1952 and the German Communist Party in 1956.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has urged Germans to take part in an "uprising of decent people," and he planned to attend an anti-hate march in Berlin today, the anniversary of the Nazis' 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom and the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.
