A senior member of Germany's far-right National Democratic Party charged with incitement for producing CDs that prosecutors say encouraged violence against foreigners went on trial yesterday.
Prosecutors accuse Jens Puehse, 35, of producing and distributing some 2,500 CDs between 2000 and 2003 that called for hatred and violence against foreigners and left-wingers.
Puehse is a member of the national leadership council of the National Democratic Party, or NPD. The charges stem from his activities as manager of a publishing house that police raided in 2003.
Puehse rejected the incitement charges, although he said at the Dresden state court that he regretted that a CD titled "Der Untermensch" ("The Subhuman") had been produced.
Over the past three years, the NPD has won seats in the regional legislatures of two states in economically depressed eastern Germany — including Saxony, where Puehse's publishing house is based and the trial is taking place.
That has prompted discussion of whether the government should launch a new drive to ban the party. Officials are wary, however, after Germany's highest court in 2003 blocked a previous attempt to ban the NPD.
AP