Neo-Nazis offered cash to quit

Violence by neo-Nazis has risen in the past year

BERLIN, Germany -- Far-right extremists have been urged to quit fanaticism -- with offers of German Government cash and new identities.

The plans were announced by Interior Minister Otto Schily at the same time as Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was being heckled by young extremists opposed to government efforts to ban a far-right party.

In a bid to quash a recent surge in racist and anti-Semitic violence, the government said it would help neo-Nazis who voluntarily leave the extremist scene.

State security officials would offer protection to neo-Nazis wanting to quit who faced danger.

They would also offer advice on finding jobs, financial assistance and -- in extreme cases -- a new identity, Schily said.

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A nationwide telephone line would also be set up allowing neo-Nazis to contact national security authorities directly.

Schily declined to say how much the plans would cost, but insisted it was not about "subsidising neo-Nazis."

"The point is to weaken and destabilise the far-right scene," he said.

Schroeder was heckled by about 15 neo-Nazis as he toured a communist-era housing project in the town of Schwedt, northeast of Berlin.

They shouted "hypocrite" and "swindler" and unfurled a banner bearing the slogan "You can't ban the resistance, Herr Schroeder."

More right-wing extremists joined a demonstration against high unemployment at Schroeder's next stop in Prenzlau, where the chancellor opened an exhibition on Anne Frank.

About 1.5 million people, or 10 percent of the population, have left the region in the decade since German unification, leaving empty and derelict many of the concrete apartment buildings that were once the pride of the communist regime.

Urban decay is a fertile ground for right-wing agitation, and many housing estates have been declared foreigner-free "national liberated areas" by neo-Nazi youths.

Jewish support

Earlier this month, Schily said the number of hate attacks rose to 13,753 crimes between January 2000 and November, an increase of 45 percent from the year before.

The idea of a national assistance programme for reformed neo-Nazis won praise from the leader of Germany's Jewish community.

"If it succeeds in turning young people away from extreme right-wing and anti-Semitic thinking in time, it must be supported," Paul Spiegel told the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper.

The conservative opposition criticised the idea as "insufficient."

"The possibility cannot be dismissed that financial help for leaving the far-right scene may also make joining it more attractive," said Erwin Marschewski, the opposition's domestic policy spokesman.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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German Parliament

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