Fourteen West German scientists and professors demanded today in an open letter the immediate establishment of diplomatic relations between West Germany and Israel and all necessary steps to withdraw West German scientists from Egypt where they are working on advanced weapons systems.
The letter, addressed to Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, Foreign Minister Gerhard Schroeder and members of the Foreign Committee of the Bundestag, was published in “Welt Dar Arbeit,” the weekly of the West German trade union movement. The letter stressed that all efforts to atone for the “horrible mass persecution” of the Jews committed in the name of the German people were now endangered.
The letter recalled that in 1952, the then Chancellor Konrad Adenauer declared that West Germany would establish diplomatic relations with Israel as soon as Israel was prepared for this. “Whoever denies Israel those diplomatic relations questions the very existence of this state,” the scientists and scholars stressed. “This has been done until now only by the Arab countries, Red China and East Germany.”
West German trade unions recently launched a campaign to collect signatures from their 6,000,000 members for a petition for Bonn-Jerusalem ties.
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.
