German police have seized hundreds of CDs containing far right rock music in a raid on offices of the National Democratic Party (NPD), an organization likened to the Nazis and expected to make gains in upcoming regional elections. The CDs, which the party planned to distribute in schools, were suspected of containing unconstitutional lyrics, according to prosecutors in Dresden, the capital of Saxony, where elections will be held in 10 days. The NPD can be compared to Hitler's Nazi party of the 1920s. The government has accused the NPD of fomenting racism and being similar to Hitler's Nazi party in ideology, language and symbols. But a bid by the government and parliament to outlaw the NPD failed in 2002 due to procedural errors.
Tapping a wave of protest against the government's welfare cuts, the NPD is currently forecast to win 7% of the vote in the Saxony election. The NPD has been joining street protests against the government's economic reforms, forming an unlikely front with the post-communist PDS, which is also profiting from eastern disenchantment with government plans for jobless benefit cuts. Holger Apfel, an NPD candidate in Saxony, was quoted by the newspaper "Berliner Zeitung" as telling a rally: "We will not rest until German re-education centers such as the Holocaust memorial in Berlin are razed to the ground."
