Three-quarters of the officials of the West German state of Wuerttemberg-Baden, in the U.S. zone, are former Nazis, according to an official survey made public here last night by the state Denazification Ministry.
Of some 11,000 officials in the five major ministries in the province, over 8,450 are former Nazis and over 2,000 are of such former high Nazi Party rank as to bring them under an occupation ban on office-holding, the survey revealed.
Maj. Gen. Charles P. Gross, U.S. Commissioner for the state, said that the preponderance of Nazis in the government does not indicate a resurgence of Nazism. He insisted that German officials are extremely cliquish and hire each other regardless of the government in power. The Minister-President of Wuerttemberg-Baden, Reinhold Maier, however, said that it is impossible to find enough able officials to run the government without using former Nazis.
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