Minister of Justice Wolfgang Stammberger today announced that he has appointed Dr. Kurt Pagendram, a member of the High Court at Karlsruhe, to carry out disciplinary action against former Federal Chief Prosecutor Wolfgang Fraenkel for hiding his Nazi past.
Dr. Fraenkel was dismissed from his post two weeks ago, after it was proven he had participated as a prosecutor in Hitler’s Peoples Court at Leipzig, during the war, taking part in prosecutions that resulted in death sentences for minor offenses. Fraenkel had kept his Nazi past secret prior to his elevation to the high post of chief prosecutor for the Bonn Government, last March. He was exposed by documentary material presented by East German authorities.
A Government spokesman announced today that West Germany was ready to accept and examine carefully documentary material on the political past of persons now holding public office in West Germany.
Gunther von Hase, the Bonn Government’s chief spokesman, disclosed the new attitude as the latest development in the growing debate in West Germany over judges and prosecutors with suspected Nazi pasts who refused to accept a Bundestag June 30 deadline to resign. The Communist East German Government recently offered such files to the Bonn Justice Minister.
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