AUSTRIA: Neo-Nazism

Usually these days, neo-Nazism takes the form of desecrating Jewish graves, chalking swastikas on walls or trying to break up performances of The Diary of Anne Frank. But Vienna police decided that a secret society of juvenile delinquents called Bundes Heimattreuer Jugend had bigger ambitions. Last week they raided the B.H.J., seized arms and explosives and uncovered plans to dynamite the Italian embassy as a means of aggravating the Austro-Italian dispute over South Tyrol ; the young thugs also planned to rough up delegates to the Communist World Youth Festival in July. Police arrested 18 members, including 27-year-old Ringleader Gustav Etzelt. Significantly, most of the arrested young neo-Nazi hooligans were in their early 20s, too young really to know what the Hitler era had been like.