Germany's Schroeder Slams Neo-Nazis
by TONY CZUCZKA
Associated Press Writer
PLAUEN, Germany (AP) -- On his first
extended trip Monday through
a region blighted by neo-Nazi violence,
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
called on citizens to stand up to the
extreme right following attacks
that have left three people dead so far
this year.
Schroeder's two-week bus trip is a
high-profile break with Germany's
political routine -- an attempt to
connect with people and problems
in a region where alienation and a lack
of jobs play out most terribly
in a growing number of neo-Nazi attacks
on foreigners and other
minorities.
Many eastern Germans feel disadvantaged
and frustrated a decade
after German unification, which wiped out
much of the region's
industry and left it with joblessness
about twice the national
average. It is just this sense of
dissatisfaction that caused a spike
in neo-Nazi violence in the first two
years after reunification and is
contributing now to a resurgence.
Schroeder emphasized Monday that in 1989,
when their protests
brought the Berlin Wall down, East
Germans displayed the sort of
civic courage that political leaders are
now trying to foster.
Schroeder met with some of the former
democracy activists during
his stop in Plauen and held them up as an
example for all Germans --
east and west. He urged citizens to
defend democracy by standing
up against ''far-right rowdies'' he said
were giving the region a bad
name.
''On this trip, I want to make it clear
that extreme-right ideas are not
purely eastern German,'' he said at an
earnest meeting with local
officials in this town near the Czech
border. ''Without a civic
response against right-wing extremism, we
won't make it.''
Schroeder promised to continue the
federal aid that has topped
$470 billion to the region since
unification, but he insisted that
funding and tough responses from
authorities were only part of the
answer.
Schroeder's 21-stop trip is the most
attention any German leader
has paid to the east outside an election
campaign. Tanned from his
summer vacation in Spain, he was at turns
jovial and serious during
Monday's stops.
About 200 people on Plauen's cobblestoned
market square cheered
as the chancellor arrived at the
14th-century town hall. Mayor Rolf
Magerkord led him through an exhibition
documenting the 1989
peaceful democratic revolution in Plauen.
Schroeder's trip is a highwire act
between denouncing extremist
attacks, listening to eastern Germans'
problems and boosting their
morale. He specifically chose smaller
towns that his predecessor
Helmut Kohl, the ''father of
unification,'' never visited.
At Plauen City Hall, he urged eastern
Germans to take pride in their
economic achievements despite high
unemployment and the legacy
of 40 years of isolation and dictatorship
under communism.
Magerkord welcomed Schroeder's trip as an
attempt to break down
mental barriers separating Germans on
both sides of the former
Cold War divide. He also asked for
continued aid and the
construction of a high-speed train link
into this relatively remote
corner of Germany.
''My wish is that you bring east and west
closer together, take out
some of the strains and make conditions
more equal,'' the mayor
said.
Yet the east's dark side will be on
display again Tuesday when three
men from the region -- two 16-year-olds
and a 24-year-old -- go on
trial, charged with beating and kicking
to death a Mozambican father
of three in the city of Dessau.
Authorities say the defendants were
motivated by hate of foreigners.
The slaying is among the worst in a
recent series of right-wing
extremist attacks. The violence has
unsettled civic leaders and
prompted the government to examine
whether to ban the far-right
National Democratic Party.
Schroeder's itinerary reflects the
region's successes as well as its
demons.
Earlier Monday, he visited the spa town
of Bad Elster, which has
mastered the transition to capitalism
thanks to Germans' love of
state-subsidized spa visits. He also
dropped by a family of clarinet
makers, underlining the revival of family
businesses after the fall of
communism. In Plauen, a town of 70,000
with a lace-making
tradition, he stopped at a curtain
factory.
Other stops before Schroeder returns to
Berlin on Sept. 1 include
the former Nazi concentration camp
Mittelbau Dora and an
anti-extremist police task force at
Wittenberge, north of Berlin. He
also will visit a computer school, take a
bicycle tour of a wine region
and kick off a soccer game.
It was clear even after the first day,
however, that it will take more
than one trip by the chancellor to
convince many of the disaffected
that their lot will improve.
''This trip was necessary, definitely,''
said Bernd Kranz, 41, a jobless
bus driver who stood outside City Hall to
see Schroeder. ''But I don't
think it's going to change much even
though it's a good sign.''
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