- guardian.co.uk, Thursday August 10 2000 01.05 BST
Edmund Stoiber, the head of the state government of Bavaria, was breaking with a taboo dating back to the Nazi past which has effectively prevented discussion by the mainstream parties of measures to boost fertility.
He said: "We are having too few children - to a worrying degree, the significance of which is scarcely recognised".
His comments went to the heart of a raging debate in Germany over the linked issues of racist violence, immigration and demographics. They represented the first considered response from the right to claims that Germany has to accept more immigrants if it is to maintain its competitive edge and its welfare system.
That view lies at the root of a recently-launched government drive against the racist right. It is based on projections of the effects of Germany's low birth-rate. A UN study last March concluded that, by the middle of the century and without immigration, 32% of Germany's population would be over the age of 60.
Mr Stoiber, a possible candidate for the chancellorship in 2002, said immigration could "mitigate the problem but not solve it".
Though he was careful to stress his support for the crackdown on racist violence, Mr Stoiber told the newspaper Die Welt that the answer to the looming demographic crisis lay with "psychological and financial support" for couples who wanted to have children.
His remarks are nevertheless bound to stir controversy. Earlier this year, a fellow Christian Democrat was pilloried for standing for election on a platform of "Children not Indians" (Kinder nicht Inder), a slogan which precisely reflected the thrust of Mr Stoiber's comments.
In Berlin, judges yesterday indicted three young German skinheads for one of the most horrific of recent racist killings. Two 16-year-olds, Frank Miethbauer and Christian Richter, and Enrico Hilprecht, 24, are charged with beating and kicking to death a Mozambican man in a park in the eastern city of Dessau.
Alberto Adriano, a 39-year-old abattoir worker, died on June 11. He left a wife and three children.
Prosecutors said the defendants had shouted neo-Nazi slogans. "What do you want here in Germany?", one was alleged to have yelled before the three beat him to the ground and kicked him in the head. He died three days later.
He had come to former East Germany in the 1980s as a contract worker and remained after unification. To rightwing extremists, he would have embodied their contention that immigrant workers are responsible for the high unemployment rate in the east.
Figures published on Tuesday showed that while the seasonally adjusted jobless rate for Germany as a whole fell fractionally, the percentage of unemployed in the east rose. At 17.3%, it was more than double the 7.7% in the west.
In an age of increasing globalisation, race hate in the east is keeping out foreign investment and expertise, officials say. It also presents a potentially immense challenge when the EU expands to eastern Europe. As members of the union, Poles, Czechs and Hungarians would be free to seek work in Germany.
There have been three race killings already this year. In addition to Mr Adriano, two homeless men were kicked to death last month by neo-Nazis on the Baltic coast.
Also last month, a bomb thought to have been planted by ultra-rightwingers went off at a Düsseldorf railway station, injuring nine immigrants, of whom six were Jews.
Federal interior ministry officials yesterday held a telephone conference with their counterparts from the 16 German regions to decide on the feasibility of banning the small far right National Democratic party (NPD), which has a large skinhead following.
Proposals for a ban have split the government. Otto Schily, the interior minister, has argued that such a move could prove unconstitutional. But it has wide backing among the Greens.
