Anti-semitism in West Germany Has Been “overrated,” Heuss Says

Dr. Theodor Heuss, President of the West German Republic, asserted today that the virulence of anti-Semitism in West Germany has been “overrated and sensationalized” in Germany and abroad.

Dr. Heuss expressed that opinion in an hour-long meeting with Dr. Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress, who is now studying conditions of Jewish life in Germany. Dr. Heuss told Rabbi Prinz that recurring anti-Semitic incidents in the Bonn republic were “only superficial and isolated.”

However, Dr. Heuss said he did not believe the West German public school programs, particularly in the field of contemporary German history, were adequate enough to insure that West German youth would not remain ignorant about the facts of the Hitler period and the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis. He emphasized that some West German provinces had initiated projects to provide instruction on contemporary history for the upper school grades.

When Rabbi Prinz told Dr. Heuss that members of the Jewish community in West Germany felt themselves “isolated” from general German life, the President replied that this was due not so much to the hostility of the surrounding society but rather to a certain “shyness” on the part of both Germans and Jews. He said the destruction brought about by the Nazis was so great that “it is difficult for both to encounter each other without shyness.”

Dr. Prinz met yesterday with Henrich Lueckey the Minister of Agriculture who is scheduled to succeed Dr. Heuss on September 15 as President. The two men discussed the problem of the resurgence of anti-Semitism in West Germany, as well as reparations and indemnification questions. Dr. Luecke expressed great interest in Israel. He said Israel’s agricultural projects had made a “great impression” on him.