Right-Wing Extremism | 14.12.2008
Authorities Search for Skinhead After Police Chief Stabbed
A manhunt was under way Sunday, Dec. 14, for suspected neo-Nazis after the police chief in the southern German city of Passau was seriously injured in a knife attack.
The 52-year-old official was stabbed after answering the door of his home in the Passau suburb of Fuerstenzell on Saturday, Dec. 13. Police on Sunday said chief Alois Mannichl's injuries were not life-threatening and that he was recovering.
Police linked the attack to a series of raids against extreme right-wing groups in the city this year.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Mannichl had a reputation for taking hard line against right-wing violence
The police chief told investigators the attacker, a 1.9 meter-tall (6.2-foot), bald man, wished him greetings from "the national resistance," according to Bavarian Interior Ministry spokesman Oliver Platzer.
If suspicions of neo-Nazi responsibility for the attack prove true, it would represent an "escalation of violence" and "a completely new dimension of violence from the right," Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said.
While emphasizing that indications of a far-right attack needed to be confirmed, Herrmann told the daily Passauer Neuen Presse in an article to appear Monday that such violence would reignite discussions over whether to ban the far-right NPD party.
The NDP has legislative seats in two of the 16 German states, but no representation at federal level.
Last month the extreme right-wing party NPD accused the police director of harassing its members during a rally to remember Germany's war dead.
Far-right extremists went on the rampage in July after the grave of a deceased functionary was exhumed and police removed a Nazi flag that had been draped over the coffin during the burial.
The Bavarian Interior Ministry has said the number of crimes related to right-wing extremism in and around Passau has more than doubled in the past year. Police has investigated 83 crimes so far in 2008, compared to 40 in 2007.
There are around 31,000 members of extreme right-wing groups in Germany, about 10,000 of whom are prepared to resort to violence, according to the domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Some 377 people were injured in attacks by right-wing extremists last year, according to national police. In all, there were 17,000 crimes with a right-wing extremist background. In the first nine months of this year, the figure was up nearly 9 percent, police figures show.