Fighting Right-Wing Violence In Germany

Warning of mounting violence against minorities, Jewish leaders and government officials in Germany are recruiting celebrities to rally public opinion against neo-Nazis.

"The situation in Germany is unbearable," Paul Spiegel, chairman of the Central Council of Jews, said Monday. "We are not going to let a couple of thousand extremists ruin what we have built up over 55 years."

Spiegel and other leaders met in Duesseldorf, where a bomb exploded at a train station last month, injuring 10 recent immigrants, six of them Jews. Although police don't know the motive, the incident focused attention on ethnic prejudice in a country still haunted by the memory of the Nazi-era slaughter of Jews and other minorities.

Government spokesman Uwe-Karsten Heye said he would help recruit stars from film, television and sports "to show public resistance" against right-wing extremism.

The biggest name to sign on so far is former tennis champion Boris Becker, who has often complained about his wife being subjected to racial slurs. Barbara Becker is the daughter of a black American father and a white German mother.

Others joining the campaign include Mario Adorf, who starred in the Oscar-winning film The Tin Drum, actress Veronica Ferres and rock musician Marius Mueller-Westernhagen.

Even as officials met, police said that a bomb found Monday outside a home in Bavaria may have been planted by neo-Nazis. The bomb was removed, and police said they did not know who left it there, but they noted the family's deceased father was Jewish.

Recent government statistics show anti-Semitic and anti-foreigner attacks on the rise this year, with incidents reported daily.

Two Jewish cemeteries were vandalized with swastikas and Nazi SS symbols over the weekend in western Germany. On Sunday, two Pakistani men were attacked in a restaurant in the eastern city of Gera by drunken men, twof whom had been at a party the night before where cries of "Heil Hitler" and "Sieg Heil" were heard, police said.

Federal officials reported in April that the number of known right-wing extremists in Germany dropped by 2,200 last year to 51,400, out of a population of 81 million.

But the number considered violence-prone rose about 10 percent to roughly 9,000, they said. Officials also reported 746 violent crimes-- a 5 percent increase attributed to neo-Nazis last year, including the first killings in three years.

So far this year, three killings by neo-Nazis have been recorded.

The government says 129 offenses connected to the extreme right were recorded in June, including 28 attacks on individuals and two arsons. That was 47 more than in May and 32 more than in June, 1999.

By George Boehmer