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CS-311 06103-69membership and others are dropping out quietly. In March the paid-up membership was about 300.)2. Following the abortive attempt by the National Democratic Party (NPD) leadership to force the Berlin SPD to dissolve itself for tactical reasons in October 1968, routine party activity resumed almost immediately. It was characterized by a split between the leadership of the Berlin City (Landesverband) party unit and that of district (Kreisverband) party units. The former are generally loyal to National Party Chairman Adolf von Thadden and the national leadership in Hanover and their broader tactical concepts, while the latter, referred to as the "Loyalists" (Satzungstreue), defend the letter of the Berlin NPD statutes. The Loyalists initially objected primarily to the method of the attempted dissolution, but the friction with the city Executive Committee (Landesvorstand) headed by Rudolf Kendzia led to total mutual mistrust, disloyal statements to the press, and efforts to get each other expelled from the party by a party court (Schiedsgericht).3. At a general membership meeting in Berlin on 15 March 1969, von Thadden attempted to achieve a truce within the party and ordered that there be no "political organizational activity" until after the September 1969 parliamentary elections. At this meeting von Thadden approved the scheduling of a Berlin party convention (Landesparteitag) for 26 April 1969, at which a new and hopefully more stable city Executive Committee was to be elected.4. The 15 March meeting provided an indication that the Berlin NPD may well stick together under von Thadden's guidance until 1971, in spite of the friction between city and district leadership. Although the eight spokesmen for the local leadership, who took the floor after Kendzia's situation report and von Thadden's keynote speech, approved the action of the Berlin NPD districts in opposing the self-dissolution of the local party, and no one contradicted them, all but 31 of the 140 members present then voted for a resolution condemning District Chiefs Johann Ratzek (Schoeneberg) and Philipp Goelles (Wilmersdorf), leaders of the Loyalists, for anti-party activity. This vote amounted to a vote of confidence in the tactics of the Berlin City leadership, and according to members present was due solely to von Thadden's presence and influence. In the view of these members, a meeting without the attendance of representatives of the Hanover headquarters would have led to a no-confidence vote in the Kendzia leadership. During the meeting, von Thadden also rejected Kendzia's "Berlin Program," which called for a softer line on East Germany and on German reunification.5. At the 15 March session, left-wing, anti-NPD protestors assaulted a number of NPD members and forced the NPD twice to change its meeting site. This leftist action and the obvious fact that the militant left has a penetration of the Berlin NPD have had a seriously dampening effect on the NPD's willingness to meet in the open. The party is now tentatively planning to hold future meetings on a rented excursion boat whose location would not be announced until the time of the meeting.6. The Berlin NPD has made strenuous efforts to determine which left-wing organizations made up the task force which tried to disrupt the 15 March meeting. The Extraparliamentary Opposition (APO) claimed the honor, but the NPD investigation showed definitely that all but a handful of the protestors were an organized group dispatched by the Spandau branch of the West Berlin Socialist Unity Party (SEW) whose actions are part of a long-range program of harassment by the East Berlin Socialist Unity Party (SED).7. Because of the subsequent possible threats of prohibition by the Allies (signalled by a letter from Governing Mayor Klaus Schuetz to the Allies asking that the NPD in Berlin be banned) and of further counter-demonstrations by the militant left, on 27 March von Thadden wrote a letter to the Berlin City leadership asking that54321SECRE T/NO FOREIGN DISSEM