Berlin  - Radovan Karadzic would have made "a good Nazi," Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy who brokered the 1995 deal that ended the Bosnian war, has said, following the arrest of the Bosnian Serb leader in Belgrade.

Speaking to the German news magazine Der Spiegel in remarks published Saturday, Holbrooke said he had been "beside myself with joy" at the news of Karadzic's arrest in Belgrade on Monday.

Wolfsburg, Germany - Volkswagen is to build the right-hand- drive version of its new Golf model at its main German plant in Wolfsburg, shifting production from its plant at Uitenhage on South Africa's southern coast, the company announced Saturday.

VW South Africa head David Powells told the newspaper Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung the RHD version of the Golf VI, aimed at the Asia- Pacific and African markets, would be available in October.

Bayreuth, Germany - Enthusiastic applause greeted the new production of Wagner's Parsifal by Norwegian director Stefan Herheim at the opening of the annual Bayreuth Festival Friday evening.

Herheim presented the late work by the composer as images from an excursion through the various stages of German history. It was greeted with approbation by the VIP audience, including Chancellor Angel Merkel.

The audience was less enthusiastic about Conductor Daniele Gatti, whose interpretation of the score drew the occasional boo.

Herheim set the opera in Bayreuth itself, with the backdrop designed by Heike Scheele using Haus Wahnfried, Richard Wagner's villa in the city, as the setting for the antics of high society in the Wilhelmine period.

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udwigsburg, Germany - German war-crimes prosecutors have asked police to begin a hunt for surviving ex-servicemen from a 7,500-man Nazi military unit accused of some of the worst atrocities of the Second World War in Poland.

The national office on war crimes at Ludwigsburg in western Germany said Friday it had commissioned the state police of Baden-Wuerttemberg to check out new clues obtained from Red Cross archives in Munich that list names and addresses of ex-soldiers.

The most violent unit of the Nazi Party private army, the SS, was commanded by Oskar Dirlewanger and formed of ex-criminals.

Weimar, Germany -  A lawyer of Italian descent unveiled Friday in the German city of Weimar what he said was fresh evidence that German literary great Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had been romantically linked to his dowager-duchess boss.

Ettore Ghibellino, 39, who was born in Germany but had his early schooling in Italy, presented passages from letters by another woman, Countess Caroline Goertz, which he said showed that Duchess Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar was in love with Goethe, 10 years her junior.

Ghibellino has upset established German literary scholars with the claim, first aired in a book he wrote in 2003. Goethe (1749-1832) is regarded as Germany's greatest poet and wrote about romantic love.

Frankfurt  - Despite high fuels costs and growing economic uncertainty, luxury German carmaker Audi said Friday it expects to report an improved business performance this year.