Bundeswehr army soldiers raised their arms in stiff Hitler salutes, threatened to kill Jews and made verbal assaults against  foreigners in videotape uncovered by the German television network SAT-1.

Broadcast of the tapes provides new evidence of an anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi influence that runs through at least parts of the German military and is apparently tolerated by some ranking officers.

Eight soldiers from the 571st Mountain Infantry battalion are shown in the video. Other home video showing pro-Nazi actions by the same unit were uncovered several months ago.

Among the scenes depicted in the video were soldiers shouting anti-Semitic, anti-gay, anti-foreigner slogans. The verbal attacks seen in the video are accompanied by music from neo-Nazi German bands.

Officials Unleash Fury After Grass Condemns 'Latent Foreigner Hate'
FRANKFURT --   Günter Grass, Germany's best known living author, has become the target of a furiously bitter series of attacks by the country's ruling politicians.

One after another leader of Chancellor Helmut Kohl's christian democrats (CDU), the party's Bavarian CSU and even some from the opposition social democrats (SPD) unleashed untempered rage against Grass for condemning "latent German hate of foreigners."

The author, in a speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair, said Germans "have all become passive witnesses, once again, to barbarism... this time barbarism backed by democracy." He decried the use of German arms to fight a "war of extermination" against Turkish Kurds as well as Germany's refusal to grant asylum to those Kurds who flee their persecutors.

Grass charged that "latent German hatred of foreigners" is translated into "bureaucratically coded deportation policies of the Interior Ministry, which finds its echo in the columns of the extreme right."

CDU party manager Peter Hintze, in a stinging attack, declared that Germans "shouldn't have to put up" with Grass' remarks. Hintze was echoed by a chorus of political leaders as well as right-wing German newspapers.

Drive Against Scientology Heats Up
BONN -- Germany's Bundesrat or upper chamber called for a stepped-up investigation of Scientology, which could lead to an outright ban. It is the latest move in a series that claim Scientology is not a religion. US senator Alfonse D'Amato said recently that Germany is violating religious liberties with its actions against Scientology.

German Taxi Drivers Arrested For Having Foreign Passengers

BERLIN -- Official German government racism has taken a major turn for the worse as authorities arrest taxi drivers who dare take foreigners as passengers. The arrests have been in cities and towns near Germany's eastern border. A television report has documented the new policy, in which taxi drivers are under police orders to demand passports of any person "appearing to be a foreigner" who they wish to accept as a passenger.

At least one taxi driver has been sentenced to 16 months in prison for having carried an "illegal" foreigner as a passenger, officials confirmed.

Forty-two arrests have been made just in the state of Brandenburg, where drivers are charged with having carried passengers who were not -- according to the paramilitary Bundesgrenzschutzpolizei (border police) -- "legal" in Germany. In nearly each of the cases, the arrested taxi drivers did not know of their passengers' alleged illegal status.

Nor could they have known. Until recently German law has been similar to law in most countries, forbidding ordinary citizens from demanding passports of anyone. But Germany has now changed that, ordering -- under threat of arrest and imprisonment -- that taxi drivers get proof of a passenger's legal status before accepting the passenger as a fare, and further ordering that drivers denounce those who refuse to produce proof of status by taking them to police for arrest.

A report on German television station ORB quotes a taxi driver as explaining, "What happens is that we are being officially punished when we drive foreigners. And none of us wants to be convicted for that."

The broadcast quoted a police official as saying "In principle, if you don't have white skin, we control you." Asked whether everyone who does not appear to have white skin will be controlled, the official replied, "Yes... here, yes."

News correspondents declared that they found taxi drivers were highly reluctant to assist in the denunciation and arrest drive against foreigners. Many refuse to demand passports of their passengers, risking arrest and imprisonment.