West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer today indirectly rejected demands by various German groups that the reparations pact with Israel be turned over to the United Nations for final action.
Addressing the Christian Democratic Union, the party which he heads, Dr. Adenauer called the pact a “moral necessity” which would help restore Germany’s prestige abroad. He stated that although Germany had not been indebted financially to the State of Israel, it owed a considerable debt to world Jewry.
“Since the conclusion of the Luxembourg agreement with Israel last month, we have done all that was laid down by moral law,” the Chancellor said. “And my belief is that that which is laid down by moral law is at least as important as that laid down by juridical law. I am convinced,” he added, “that the agreement with Israel has done more than anything else to eradicate from Germany the stains made by National Socialism and will re-establish the world’s regard for Germany.”
Meanwhile, the German Party, a rightist group, at its annual convention at Goslar, today decided that while Germany’s good name must be restored and that this could be done by implementing the Israel reparations agreement, the pact should be handed over to the U.N. as a means of saving good relations with the Arabs. The party statement said that the U.N. would probably consider the reparations treaty in relation to the plight of the Arab refugees. It added that the U.N. was the proper body for rendering a “Solomonic judgment” and for effecting German reparations to Israel.
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