“Fra­ter­ni­ty Broth­ers: Ques­tion­able Pol­ish Bor­ders”; www.german-foreign-policy.com; 1/19/2010.

“The Ger­man Min­is­ter of Trans­porta­tion, Peter Ram­sauer (CSU) is mem­ber of a stu­dent fra­ter­ni­ty that has ties to cir­cles of the right extrem­ist Nation­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty of Ger­many — NPD. The umbrel­la fra­ter­ni­ty “Deutsche Burschen­schaft,” (DB) not only has Min­is­ter Ram­sauer as a mem­ber, but also two NPD mem­bers of region­al par­lia­ments. The alleged his­tor­i­cal mer­its of Nazi crim­i­nals Hess and Hitler are debat­ed in the DB’s news­pa­per. The fra­ter­ni­ty, in which Ram­sauer is referred to as a “fra­ter­ni­ty broth­er”, places Poland’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty into ques­tion. In the next few weeks, Trans­porta­tion Min­is­ter Ram­sauer is due to reach a deci­sion con­cern­ing Nazi vic­tims in Poland, who are demand­ing repa­ra­tions from his min­istry for dam­ages incurred dur­ing Nazi depor­ta­tion car­ried out with the “Deutsche Reichs­bahn” (Ger­man state rail­road in WW II). Cab­i­net mem­ber Ram­sauer is not alone. Hans-Peter Uhl is also a mem­ber of a fra­ter­ni­ty with NPD ties. Uhl is the spokesper­son for domes­tic affairs of the con­ser­v­a­tive CDU/CSU par­lia­men­tary cau­cus in the Ger­man Par­lia­ment (Bun­destag). Leg­is­la­tion con­cern­ing the sur­veil­lance of the coun­try’s right-wing extrem­ists is among Uhl’s func­tions. [Ital­ics are mine–D.E.]
With­in the spec­trum of the Ger­man cab­i­net, Ram­sauer advo­cates far rightwing polit­i­cal stand­points. His polit­i­cal men­tor is Otto Wiesheu (CSU), who until recent­ly was a mem­ber of the pre­sid­i­um of the Deutsche Bahn AG (DB AG — the Ger­man rail­road), in charge of “polit­i­cal rela­tions”. As super­vis­ing min­is­ter in charge of the DB AG, Ram­sauer is con­tin­u­ing Wiesheu’s work. . . .”