German pol’s statements seen as ‘neo-Nazi

By · January 9, 2008

Anti-foreigner statements by conservative German politician Roland Koch make him sound like a neo-Nazi, a German-Jewish leader said.

Koch, a member of the Christian Democratic Union party who is running for re-election this month, recently called for the deportation of “criminal foreigners” and the establishment of re-education camps for juvenile offenders.

Stephan Kramer, secretary-general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, responded by saying that “the level of the campaign of Mr. Koch is slowly reaching that of the NPD,” the National Democratic Party of Germany, the country’s largest far-right party.

The National Democrats congratulated Koch on his anti-foreigner stance.

Kramer told the Associated Press that the Christian Democrats’ approach to the issues seems designed to raise the level of fear in the public, which is reminiscent of the tactics of the neo-Nazi National Democrats.

The Christian Democrats, the party of Chancellor Angela Merkel, vehemently rejected Kramer’s criticism. The party’s secretary-general, Ronald Pofalla, in a radio interview called Kramer’s statement “an unsurpassable absurdity.”