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Germany Denies Helping Nasser to Develop Atomic Warheads

March 22, 1963
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The Foreign Ministry denied today that West Germany is helping develop atomic warheads for Egyptian missiles. At the same time it pointed out that the Government has no way, under the law, to stop German citizens from leaving the country to work for any other government.

Foreign Ministry officials admitted that work is proceeding in Egypt for the construction of an experimental nuclear research reactor, under a Bonn-Cairo pact signed in December 1960. However, they added, the reactor is not yet operative and that, at any rate, it will be too small to manufacture fissionable materials for warheads.

A Social Democratic member of the West German Parliament, Walter Faller, said today he will submit a question to Parliament involving attacks and abduction attempts on West German scientists working on rockets and missiles for the Nasser Government in Egypt.

The deputy said his question would concern the issue of whether a reported assassination attempt against Dr. Hans Kleinwachter, an electronics expert, last February 20, was connected with the abduction last year of Dr. Heinz Krug, Munich rocket specialist, and Dr. Wolfgang Pilz of Stuttgart.

Dr. Kleinwachter was reported to have been working with Prof. Jens Goerke, who is now in Egypt, and whose daughter, Heidi, was reportedly the target of an attempt by an Israeli, Joseph Bengal, and an Austrian, Prof. Otto Jukelik, to induce her to urge her father to quit his work in Cairo and return to West Germany. The Israeli and the Austrian were arrested in Basle on March 2 at the request of West German authorities.

German officials here were quoted as charging that their investigations had established that Jukelik allegedly took part both in the abduction of Krug and the assault on Kleinwachter.

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