Austrian Chancellor Julius Raab, leader of the People’s Party, larger of the two parties in the coalition government, clashed today with his Socialist colleagues in the Cabinet over the arrest of 15 Austrian ex-policemen arrested here last week and accused of having participated in the mass extermination of Jews in a number of cities during the Nazi occupation of Poland. The Chancellor wanted the men released and further investigation of their case dropped; the Socialists refused. It is expected that the next government, which will again have the People’s Party leading it, will pass wider amnesty laws for ex-Nazis.
Yesterday, the Cabinet decided to advise the Ministry of Justice to speed up its investigation into the cases of 15 Austrian ex-policemen. At the same time, a spokesman for the Chancellery declared that any possible recommendation for amnesty for the policemen must await the new Austrian Government, since the present government must resign shortly, following recent Austrian elections.
The People’s Party has protested the arrests, declaring that the policemen had already been sufficiently punished and had suffered enough in Soviet prison camps. The People’s Party offered the same explanation in the case of a former Gestapo leader, Johann Sanitzer, who was once sentenced to life imprisonment by an Austrian court, then turned over to the Russians, and has remained free here since his release by them. The Austrian veterans organization also protested the arrest of the 15 accused policemen on the grounds that the accusations against them are based on Communist Polish assertions.
On the other hand, the Austrian resistance movement defended the arrests, and demanded that the proved murderers be sentenced since the accusations against them are well founded.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
