I’m not a Nazi, says BNP man (From Redditch Advertiser)

I’m not a Nazi, says BNP man

12:55pm Tuesday 1st May 2007 in News

A BRITISH National Party candidate standing in Thursday's local elections dresses in Nazi uniforms and has driven a military vehicle with a swastika on the bonnet.

Karl Newman, 47, hit the national headlines at the weekend after posting pictures that could be seen to glorify Nazism on his website.

As a military re-enactor, he says he dresses up in the spirit of Dad's Army and always asks event organisers if they would prefer him not to.

"Everything's done politically correctly. We don't offend, we don't do Nazi salutes, we do the Dad's Army sort of thing," he said.

The images are on a website dedicated to his hobby of restoring Kubelwagens - vehicles which transported German troops during the Second World War.

The windows firm boss and Greenlands candidate said he put the swastika on one vehicle's bonnet for a student studying wartime history to film it and had only flown Nazi flags from the vehicle on two occasions, both for photoshoots.

"People can see when you’ve got a military vehicle you have to get into period costume."

BNP candidate Karl Newman

Since the story broke, Mr Newman has removed some pictures showing the Nazi flag from his website and posted an apology.

"I thought people would understand it was done in the spirit of a re-enactment," he said.

Mr Newman explained he was selling swastika flags and other Nazi memorabilia through the site because he was going to open a museum dedicated to the German occupation of Jersey but the project had fallen through.

After the website was exposed, he invited journalists to interview him because he says he has nothing to hide.

"It's totally inaccurate and blown out of all proportion. I'm not racist, my best friend is Jamaican. I'm not a Nazi and not a fascist. I'm a live-and-let-live sort of person," he added.

"Bovington Tank Museum has 10 German tanks. Does that mean they're Nazi sympathisers? It's just a display item."

Mr Newman does not believe the story has damaged his chances in tomorrow's election and said many people he met when he went out leafleting on Sunday had laughed at it.

"People can see when you've got a military vehicle you have to get into period costume," he said, adding he wears a British uniform when he takes his ex-Army Land Rover to shows.

His late father fought in the Second World War and his grandfathers in the First World War.

"I wouldn't disrespect them by doing anything harmful to their memory," he said.

Mr Newman added he had declared his interest in German miltary history to the BNP and had never attended any Nazi meetings or discussed Nazi politics.

Redditch MP Jacqui Smith said: "Redditch people are decent and tolerant and they made enormous sacrifices to defeat Nazi extremism in the Second World War.

"These pictures tell us that some in the BNP want to celebrate the swastika, the Iron Crosses and the strutting of the Nazi war machine rather than the sacrifices made by our own side - they turn your blood cold.

"I have often thought that the roots of the BNP are intermingled with the Nazis in Germany - these pictures seem to confirm that link is alive and well in the murkier corners of the BNP.'' Other election candidates in the Greenlands ward are Ken Banks (Conservative), Wanda King (Labour) and Anthony Pitt (Liberal Democrat).