Far-right faux pas
The far-right party has long campaigned against German companies taking advantage of lower costs and wages in Poland by moving their work across the border. However, when it came to printing its party newspaper, the NPD had no hesitation in finding itself a reliable printing house for a knock-down price - in Poland.
German police recently discovered two Polish trucks loaded with more than 20,000 copies of the NPD's nationalistic paper, Deutsche Stimme, or German Voice, in the German region of Saxony. The trucks were delivering the papers from a printing plant in the Polish town of Jelenia Gora.
The NPD has long fought what it calls 'social dumping' and had called on the assembly of the German state of Saxony to come up with measures against foreign wage pressures. The party promoted its viewpoint with the motto: "Closed borders for wage dumping," and has been playing on voters' fears over EU accession by saying Germany was losing production to the new member states, and also demanded that cheap laborers from Poland or Czech Republic not be allowed to work in Germany.
However, what's good for the manifesto is not good for the budget, it seems, and now the party is being forced to explain why it was taking advantage of cheaper printing facilities across the border.
"We want to print in Germany but no publisher wants to have us," the NPD's parliamentary leader, Holger Apfel, told the German press. Other politicians have branded the NPD hypocrites, and Saxony's Interior Minister, Thomas de Maiziere, said the party could take legal action against German printing houses if it wanted. The incident merely showed the NPD hypocrisy since "they accuse others of doing what they do themselves," he added.
Apfel appears anything but apologetic, however, and in a stark reference to the Nazi campaigns against Jews in the Third Reich, he said there was a "societal pogrom attitude against the NPD." The party has done little to curry favor with voters outside of the far-right. In January, NPD deputies in the Saxon assembly refused to take part in a moment of silence for the victims of the Nazi regime during a commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. However, this latest slip-up is sure to damage the party's image among its hard-core supporters.
The Polish printing house responsible is unlikely to win any friends in Poland either, with many highly opposed to the publication of any extremist material within the country, German or otherwise.
German police recently discovered two Polish trucks loaded with more than 20,000 copies of the NPD's nationalistic paper, Deutsche Stimme, or German Voice, in the German region of Saxony. The trucks were delivering the papers from a printing plant in the Polish town of Jelenia Gora.
The NPD has long fought what it calls 'social dumping' and had called on the assembly of the German state of Saxony to come up with measures against foreign wage pressures. The party promoted its viewpoint with the motto: "Closed borders for wage dumping," and has been playing on voters' fears over EU accession by saying Germany was losing production to the new member states, and also demanded that cheap laborers from Poland or Czech Republic not be allowed to work in Germany.
However, what's good for the manifesto is not good for the budget, it seems, and now the party is being forced to explain why it was taking advantage of cheaper printing facilities across the border.
"We want to print in Germany but no publisher wants to have us," the NPD's parliamentary leader, Holger Apfel, told the German press. Other politicians have branded the NPD hypocrites, and Saxony's Interior Minister, Thomas de Maiziere, said the party could take legal action against German printing houses if it wanted. The incident merely showed the NPD hypocrisy since "they accuse others of doing what they do themselves," he added.
Apfel appears anything but apologetic, however, and in a stark reference to the Nazi campaigns against Jews in the Third Reich, he said there was a "societal pogrom attitude against the NPD." The party has done little to curry favor with voters outside of the far-right. In January, NPD deputies in the Saxon assembly refused to take part in a moment of silence for the victims of the Nazi regime during a commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. However, this latest slip-up is sure to damage the party's image among its hard-core supporters.
The Polish printing house responsible is unlikely to win any friends in Poland either, with many highly opposed to the publication of any extremist material within the country, German or otherwise.
