Dr. Joachim Prinz. national president of the American Jewish Congress, told the quarterly meeting of the administrative committee yesterday, that after a decade of “atonement” by Germany’s political leaders for Hitler’s crimes against the Jews, a new generation was coming to power with a growing belief that Germany had paid its debts for the excesses of the Nazi regime and that the record of the past must be forgotten.
Reporting on a survey of social and political conditions that he undertook in Germany this summer. Dr. Prinz warned that “German-Jewish relationships appeared to be entering a new stage, one that will require close and careful watching by all men of good will who cannot lightly dismiss the horrors of the Nazi era. “
One bright spot in the present German picture. Dr. Prinz said, is the role of the press, radio and television in exposing renewed outbreaks of anti-Semitism, attacking growing neo-Nazi movements and warning of anti-democratic developments in the country.
Dr. Prinz said that there was a growing belief among the new political generation now rising to power in Germany that the restitution payments made by the Federal Republic had wiped the slate clean.
Dr. Prinz contrasted this new and growing belief with the policy followed since the creation of the Federal Republic ten years ago by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and President Theodor Heuss who he said had been then “emotionally involved in atoning for the crimes of the Hitler regime.”
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.
