Returning and Redemption
West German authorities banned a neo-Nazi party because it aimed in “a conscious and desired effort” to revive Hitler’s program. The crackdown on the People’s Socialist Movement of Germany-Labor Party and its youth section, the Young Front, came in a series of raids yesterday in West Berlin, Bavaria, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Hesse and Lower Saxony, the authorities said.
Hundreds of rounds of ammunition, Nazi-like flags, swastikas, portraits of Hitler and neo-Nazi material were seized. Some of the literature was thought to have been sent here from American neo-Nazi Gary Lauck, who operates from Lincoln, Nebraska.
A ban on the group, estimated to have about 100 members, the largest of 22 known neo-Nazi groups in the country, was ordered by the Interior Ministry. The banned organization, founded in 1971, has had a history of violence. Its leader, Friedheim Busse, 52, was arrested last October after a gun battle with Munich police in which two members of the group were killed.