Schroeder backs protest against German far-right

BERLIN - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder backs plans for a mass protest against far-right parties in central Berlin on May 8, the 60th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe, his spokesman said on Friday.

Spokesman Bela Anda told a news conference that Schroeder believed it should be up to major parties including his Social Democrats to organise such a protest.

Germany's resurgent far-right parties, which last year scored electoral success in two eastern state assemblies and plan to join forces for the 2006 general election, want to mark the end of the war with marches in Berlin on May 7 and May 8.

Social Democrats leader Franz Muentefering said contacts were underway between parties represented in the national parliament and trade unions about a counter demonstration at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.

"There are contacts between the parties, and also churches and trade unions. We all agree we should not leave the place to the neo-Nazis," Muentefering told ARD television.

"It is sensible we don't talk openly about how we want to achieve that," he added.

A cross-party motion to parliament last week proposed turning the gate into a monument to victims of Berlin's Cold War division and to mark the country's reunification in 1990.

Supporters of Germany's far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), which won seats in Saxony state's parliament last year, organised a large march through the gate in 2000, mirroring Nazi marches of the 1930s after Adolf Hitler gained power.

Schroeder's backing for a protest comes two weeks after the NPD in Saxony shocked the country by walking out of a ceremony to mark the Holocaust, prompting calls to ban the party.

- REUTERS