The late Werner Nachmann, accused of embezzling funds intended for Nazi victims, used part of his illicit money to bribe people into silence and secure his position as leader of West Germany’s Jewish community, according to press and radio reports Tuesday.
Nachmann, who died last January, was chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, which administered funds provided by the Bonn government for former Jewish persecutes.
He is alleged to have misappropriated at least $12 million. The case is under investigation by the Finance Ministry and by private investigators hired by the Jewish community.
The latest allegations by a West German radio station charge that Nachmann paid thousands of dollars a month to friends and supporters in the federal state of Baden-Wuertemberg where he lived.
Smaller sums went to elderly Jews to ensure his re-election as head of the community. He was chairman of the Central Council for more than 20 years.
The radio station Hessischer Rundfunk reported that Nachmann made available more than $400 a month to an unnamed director of a state-owned radio and television station.
He is also alleged to have transferred about $13,000 to a journalist in Bremen, who is a member of the Central Council.
In addition, according to the radio report, Nachmann provided about $100,000 to a group based in Konstanz, which allegedly looked after Jewish cemeteries in Poland.
Nachmann apparently played politics with local Jewish communities as well, the reports said. For example, plans to build a new community center in Heidelberg were reversed by Nachmann, and the money went for a project in Freiburg instead.
Another $400,000, which was supposed to have been transferred to the Jewish community in Heidelberg, has disappeared, the radio station reported.
Further, it reported, when a construction company contracted to build a Jewish community center in Baden estimated its cost at $4 million, Nachmann changed the estimate to $5 million.
Siegmund Nisscnbaum, a former Jewish community leader in Baden, urged in 1982 that disciplinary action be taken against Nachmann for failing to provide a full report of his handling of the community’s assets, Nisscnbaum’s lawyer said Tuesday.
The leadership body of the community rejected the idea and Nisscnbaum was not re-elected to the community council.
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.
