HC Deb 26 October 1953 vol 518 c2405
1. Mr. Wyatt

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a further statement on the arrest and release of Herr Werner Naumann.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Anthony Eden)

Yes, Sir. Since my last statement on 26th March, the Land Government of North Rhine-Westphalia listed Herr Naumann as a "Category 2 Nazi", and he was thus deprived of the right to vote or to stand for Parliament.

Herr Naumann was released from custody on 28th July by decision of the Federal Supreme Court. This decision does not affect the decision of the German authorities on whether to bring charges or not.

As I said in my original statement of 20th January, the intention of our original action was to frustrate a potential danger to democracy in Germany by bringing it into the open and leaving it to the German authorities and the German people to form their own judgment. The House will have noted that in the recent Federal elections, the German people clearly rejected extremist policies of the Right as well as of the Left.

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