BERLIN — More than 900 police officers raided homes and clubhouses of suspected neo-Nazis in a crackdown in a western German state on Thursday, seizing far-right propaganda material, computer hard drives, and weapons, the region’s top security official said.
The raids came after North Rhine-Westphalia state interior minister Ralf Jaeger banned three local neo-Nazi groups.
‘‘These groups are antiforeigner, they are racist, and they are anti-Semitic,’’ Jaeger said at a news conference.
The crackdown in North Rhine-Westphalia comes amid a greater focus on the far right in Germany. That was sparked by the revelation last year that a small group of neo-Nazis apparently managed to kill nine members of minority groups and a police officer during a seven-year period.
The existence of the National Socialist Underground group came to light only in November, when two of its three core members were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide.