Too little too late.......
Monday August 7 12:47 PM ET
Germans Recruited Against Neo-Nazis
By GEORGE BOEHMER, Associated Press Writer
DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) - Warning of mounting violence against minorities, Jewish leaders and government officials in Germany are recruiting celebrities to rally public opinion against neo-Nazis.
``The situation in Germany is unbearable,'' Paul Spiegel, chairman of the Central Council of Jews, said Monday. ``We are not going to let a couple of thousand extremists ruin what we have built up over 55 years.''
Spiegel and other leaders met in Duesseldorf, where a bomb exploded at a train station last month, injuring 10 recent immigrants, six of them Jews. Although police don't know the motive, the incident focused attention on ethnic prejudice in a country still haunted by the memory of the Nazi-era slaughter of Jews and other minorities.
Government spokesman Uwe-Karsten Heye said he would help recruit stars from film, television and sports ``to show public resistance'' against right-wing extremism.
He said they would be invited to appear at an event in Berlin in late September that he hoped would ``set a snowball effect'' in motion.
The biggest name to sign on so far is former tennis champion Boris Becker, who has often complained about his wife being subjected to racial slurs. Barbara Becker is the daughter of a black American father and a white German mother.
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