Neo-Nazi Terror

Extremists turn violent

They found his body in his cell early one morning last week. Heinrich Lembke, 44, a forester and a dedicated neo-Nazi, had hanged himself with a radio cord. He had been arrested when police found drawings in his home leading to arms that were buried around his property near Hamburg. But before he committed suicide, Lembke told authorities of an arsenal of weapons, some 90 crates of hand grenades, guns, ammunition, plus poison, that was concealed at 33 sites throughout the countryside. The discoveries, the largest of their kind in West German history, were alarming evidence of a rising wave of terrorism that is being carried out by tiny bands of right-wing extremists.

Long before the arms cache was found, officials were worried about the scope of mounting right-wing violence.

The number of reported incidents rose from 616 in 1977 to 1,533 in 1980, including seven attacks on immigrants' hostels and the explosion of a bomb in a crowded outdoor area during Munich's Oktoberfest, an annual rite of autumn, that killed 13 and injured 221. In Munich last month, two neo-Nazi suspects were killed, one was injured and two more arrested after a Shootout with police who had stopped a car loaded with weapons.

Although the movement that feeds this violence is still minuscule, membership in groups with a distinct neo-Nazi ideology jumped from 1,400 to 1,800 in the past year, according to federal officials. Paradoxically, the increase is occurring at a time when political support for right-wing extremist groups has plummeted. The Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (N.P.D.), the only legal ultraright party, won 1.4 million votes, or 4.3% of the total, in 1969. In last year's national elections, it polled an alltime low of 67,798, or .2%.

There are marked differences between right-and left-wing terrorists in West Germany. The left-wing Baader-Meinhof gang, composed mainly of middle-class dropouts, coolly singles out members of the Establishment for attack.

The neo-Nazis, who come largely from working-class backgrounds and are fervent nationalists, prefer more random acts of violence aimed at creating a climate of fear and gaining publicity.

No one in West Germany really believes that a tiny, albeit violent, core of neo-Nazis endangers the country's democracy. Yet a nation that remains haunted by its past cannot be complacent. Erwin Scheuch, a professor of sociology at the University of Cologne, acknowledges that the neo-Nazis are a negligible lot, but he adds, "We cannot afford to be blind in the right eye."

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