Left-Extremist Endeavours

Co-operation with Neo-
Nazis
parties continue to see themselves as the poodle of their U.S.
master."
("Deutsche Stimme", no. 5/99, p. 9)
3.2 Organization and Development
When Udo VOIGT in March 1996 took over the party chairmanship,
the NPD experienced an upward trend which, however, came to
a halt in 1999. While the Party, with some 6,000 members, was
able to maintain its membership level (1998: 6,000), a number of
split-offs and withdrawals of members from the Party resulted in
regional membership losses, which in instances were significant.
Thus it lost about 200 members in its Saxony Land Association
which, however, with about 1,200 remaining members, continues
to have the by far largest membership; second and third places
are taken by Bavaria (about 900) and North Rhine/Westphalia
(more than 750), respectively. In Munich on 27 November, the
NPD celebrated its 35 th anniversary under the motto "Alles Große
steht im Sturm" ["Greatness will stand firm in any storm"].
VOIGT’s strategy is to put the NPD on the broadest basis possible
in terms of personnel and to bundle a large variety of trends and
movements of national resistance. In this respect, priority continued
to be given in 1999 to co-operation with the neo-Nazis
with regard to themes and actions. This was also shown by the
fact that the neo-Nazis Steffen HUPKA, Jens PÜHSE and Frank
SCHWERDT were members of the NPD National Executive Committee.
Within the neo-Nazi ranks, the NPD’s roping-in policy met
with widespread criticism, claiming that the NPD and its youth
organization "Junge Nationaldemokraten" (JN - "Young National-
Democrats") were eager to profit from the neo-Nazis’ action
strength and from their infrastructure, but ultimately were not
ready to take up closer thematic co-operation. On the other hand,
there were many instances in which neo-Nazi action groups
succeeded in using NPD members and their periphery as the
organizers notifying demonstrations to the public authorities and
as participants in such demonstrations. In terms of their
statements and their outward appearance during such events, it
is hardly possible any longer to distinguish neo-Nazi from NPD
members/supporters.
The greatest publicity success with regard to their policy of alliances
was achieved by the NPD and JN at a rally held in Kiel on
30 January (about 1,000 participants) under the motto "the soldiers’
honour is our honour as well", and at a rally held in Magdeburg
on 27 February (about 800 participants) against dual
nationality. On the other hand, they failed with their attempt to
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