The Finance Ministry has launched an investigation into the apparent embezzlement of government funds intended for Nazi victims by the late president of the Central Council of Jews, Werner Nachmann, who had control of the funds.
The ministry will try to find out why money budgeted to the reparations fund was transferred to the Central council before the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany approved the applications of persecutes. The Claims Conference is based in New York.
The funds were supplied by the Bonn government between 1980 and 1987. The accrued interest was for the benefit of Jewish victims of Nazism in Eastern Europe who came to West Germany after the 1965 deadline for filing reparations claims.
They were to receive a one-time payment of 5,000 marks ($3,000) each on approval of their claims. According to instructions issued by Hans Matthoeffer, the finance minister in 1980, the reparations money was to be transferred to Central Council only when it was ready for disbursement.
Nachmann, a prominent businessman who died Jan. 21, was accused last week by his successor, Heinz Galinski, of misappropriating the interest on the reparations funds in the amount of some $12 million.
The Finance Ministry disclosed Monday that it had demanded last year detailed accounting from Nachmann of the funds in his custody, and on failing to receive a satisfactory response, informed him that further payments into the reparations account would be withheld until he explained how the money and interest were used.
The authorities are also investigating Alexander Ginsburg, secretary of the Central Council, who was the only community official besides Nachmann with access to the reparations account.
Ginsburg has been suspended from his job. He denies complicity in Nachmann’s alleged wrongdoings. Similarly, Nachmann’s widow, Aviva, says she had no knowledge of her husband’s activities and that he left her destitute. His textile business is in bankruptcy.
Nachmann also has been accused of stealing some 5 million marks ($3 million) from the regional Jewish community in Baden, where he lived.
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.
