The views of Wolfgang Hedler, member of the West German Parliament who several weeks ago defended the record of the Nazi regime, including its extermination of the Jews, were yesterday endorsed by his party, the rightist German Party. The party is one of three in the government coalition headed by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.
Hedler, whose parliamentary immunity has been suspended pending an investigation by the provincial authorities of Schleswig-Holstein, which he represents, said at a party executive meeting that “everyone was entitled to his opinion” of whether the Nazi system of gassing the Jews was the correct one or whether another system should have been used for ridding Germany of the Jews.
The German Party’s statement issued yesterday said, in part: “Germany had a government from 1918 until 1932 with a lot of executives and the conditions of the people were bad. There were executives in the government from 1933 to 1945 and the people lived well. Since 1945 there have been executives again who do not know anything about the distress of the population. National Socialism achieved much which was positive during its time which we are willing to take over.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
