Radio Munich broadcast last night that a larger percentage of former Nazi party members are officials of the West German Foreign Ministry now than served under Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop during the Hitler regime. The broadcast said that 85 percent of the present Foreign Office staff are ex-Nazi party members. It added that many of them helped in the mass deportations and mass killings of Jews under the Nazi regime.
Two cases were singled out as being “unsurpassed even in the Foreign Office.” They are those of Werner von Grundherr, Ambassador to Athens, and a man identified only as von Bargen, who has the rank of minister in the legal section of the Foreign Office. As political adviser to the Nazi war-time commander in Denmark, von Grundherr was charged in the broadcast with having taken an active part in the deportation of 6,000 Jews. Von Bargen was Minister in Brussels during the war. He is charged with having co-operated in sending hostages to Germany to be shot and having recommended the deportation of Belgian Jews to the East.
“The Foreign Office is a rat’s nest of former hangers-on of the Third Reich,” the broadcast charged. A parliamentary committee is conducting an investigation of the Foreign Office personnel and has so far recommended five dismissals out of 19 cases reviewed. The broadcast said none of the five has yet been suspended.
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.
