American Jewish Groups Assail Bonn’s Stand on Nazi War Criminals

The West German Government was accused today by the leaders of 18 major American Jewish organizations of “evasion of its moral responsibilities” for refusing to extend the statute of limitations on Nazi war crimes. The charge was contained in a letter to Gerhard Schroeder, West German Foreign Minister, who had rejected an invitation to meet with Jewish leaders on this issue during his visit to the U. S. earlier this month.

The letter was the latest in an exchange of correspondence between the American Jewish leaders and Dr. Schroeder. It was mailed last Friday and made public here today to permit what a spokesman termed “a proper interval for its receipt in Bonn.” Label Katz, president of B’nai B’rith and acting chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, signed the letter in behalf of the groups represented in the Conference.

The German statute of limitations for all crimes, including murder, runs 20 years. Under present German law, German war criminals against whom no judicial act has taken place would be free from prosecution on May 8, 1965, the twentieth anniversary of V-E Day.

In their letter, the Jewish groups also assailed the West German Government for its “disregard” of appeals to recall West German scientists “participating in the development of missiles for the United Arab Republic.” They cited the “declared intention of Egypt to use these weapons in a war of destruction against Israel.”

“In spite of a provision in the West German constitution barring the participation of German citizens in the manufacture of weapons intended for use in an aggressive war, the German Government has failed to act in this matter,” the letter to the West German Foreign Minister pointed out.

STRESS GERMANY HAS OBLIGATIONS TO SURVIVORS OF NAZI HOLOCAUST

“The West German Government’s evasion of its moral responsibilities with respect to the extension of the statute of limitations and the withdrawal of German scientists from Cairo undermines our confidence in your government’s awareness of the as yet unredeemed obligation of the German people to history and to the survivors of the Nazi holocaust,” the letter to Dr, Schroeder declared, adding:

“Until your government has demonstrated its clear understanding of this obligation and its readiness to discharge it in these two major areas of Jewish and general humanitarian concern, Germany’s claim to a genuine rebirth and a new moral posture must be vigorously rejected.”

The American Jewish leaders compared West Germany’s refusal to extend its statute of limitations covering Nazi war criminals with the actions of other European governments. “Only last week,” the letter noted, “the French National Assembly approved unanimously legislation which declares that ‘crimes against humanity, as they are defined by the United Nations resolution of February 13, 1946, and by the charter of the International Tribunal (at the Nuremburg Trials), are not subject to a statute of limitations by their very nature.’

“We had hoped that West Germany’s signature to the United Nations Genocide convention constituted recognition of this principle which supports the broadest respect for human life,” the letter declared. Copies of the correspondence were sent to Secretary of State Dean Rusk and to West Germany’s Ambassador to the United States, Karl-Heinrich Knappstein.

The Jewish groups were sharply critical of a telegram from Dr. Schroeder, dated Nov. 24, in which the German official said it was “very unlikely that a substantial number of hitherto unknown Nazi criminals will be discovered in the future.” In their reply, the Jewish leaders disputed this claim sharply, terming it “necessarily speculative.” “Moreover,” they stated, “it contradicts the estimates of many leading authorities who believe that the number may run into the many thousands.”

Dr. Schroeder also noted, in his Nov. 24 telegram to the Presidents’ Conference, that the German Government had issued a “worldwide appeal for assistance in bringing to justice all Nazi criminals.” The German official said in his telegram that “we hope very much that this appeal will bring the results that you and we hope for.”

The telegram from Dr. Schroeder said that after World War II Allied courts had sentenced more than 5,000 persons for war crimes and that up to January 1, 1964, West Germans had investigated the records of more than 30,000 persons and brought 12,882 persons to trial. Currently, he said, some 750 criminal proceedings were pending.

“This statistical approach is irrelevant,” the Jewish leaders declared in their reply. “It invokes quantitative criteria that are altogether unrelated to the moral issue at stake. Whether there be many or few, every Nazi criminal guilty of mass atrocities and genocide must be brought to justice.”