East Germany’s newly founded Green Party has urged the authorities to return property confiscated from the Jews by the Nazis before and during World War II.
The left-wing, environmentalist Greens emphasized last week that the Jews’ property had never been returned to its owners despite the anti-fascist rhetoric spouted by the old Communist leadership.
The demand comes amid the most revolutionary changes in the German Democratic Republic, whose entire Communist leadership resigned Sunday.
Even before this, the changes in East Germany, culminating in the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, convinced the country’s tiny Jewish community it was time to assert itself.
For one thing, the East German Jewish community, or Gemeinde, demanded that the authorities tell the truth about anti-Semitic incidents that have taken place in the country.
The Jewish community has also asked that textbooks used in schools tell the story of the Stalinist persecution of the Jews in the early years of East German history.
Meanwhile, the East Germans, strengthened by the promise of a multi-party system, are concerned about attempts by right-wing parties in West Germany to form a union with what they believe are like-minded parties in the East.
RIGHT-WING OVERTURES REBUFFED
An East German party called the National Democrats has already strongly rebuffed offers of unity made last week by two right-wing parties in West Germany.
In East Berlin, the chairman of the National Democrats, Gunter Hartman, said Saturday that his group has become alarmed by attempts by the West German National Democratic Party and the Republican Party to seek a partnership.
“We have nothing to do with those West German parties, which we consider very dangerous,” Hartman averred. “No one should confuse the East German National Democrats with the extreme right-wing party of the same name which operates in West Germany,” he made clear.
The Republicans last week announced a program for the reunification of Germany and said they had already established a base of support in the eastern part of the unified country.
The West German National Democrats likewise maintained that they had thousands of followers in East Germany.
The East German government last week announced that it would not allow West German neo-Nazi leaders to enter the country, let alone launch political activities.
The statement affirming this specifically mentioned Franz Schoenhuber, the former SS colonel who is founder of the Republicans, now the largest right-wing party in West Germany.
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.
