Berlin Jewish Community President Protests Anti-restitution Propaganda

Heinz Galinski, head of the Berlin Jewish community, took to the air waves today to voice a protest against the continuing propaganda in Germany aimed at undercutting the restitution payment program to victims of the Nazis. Dr. Galinski noted that there had been no protest from these same sources against the payment of “colossal sums” in pensions to former Nazi officials and even SS men.

The Jewish weekly Juedische Alggemeine Zeitung revealed today that since the public charge by Justice Minister Fritz Schaeffer that compensation payments to Nazi victims threatened the stability of the mark the newspaper has received hundreds of anti-Semitic crank letters. Letters from all parts of Germany have expressed regrets that the Nazis failed to “bring a final solution” of the Jewish problem.

The Social Democratic Party, using official West German Government statistics, has taken up the cudgels against Minister of Justice Fritz Schaeffer’s charges that compensation payments to victims of the Nazis threaten the stability of the mark. The Social Democratic Press Agency published today a list of government obligations “inherited from the Third Reich” which, it pointed out, demonstrates that compensation is only a fraction of the total bill Germany is currently paying on the Nazi account.

Bonn payments to Germans who lost homes, jobs and businesses in the war, who were uprooted and became refugees in Germany and who receive prisoner of war bonuses will amount to 3,950,000,000 marks this year; pensions to civil servants and soldiers of the Nazi regime will add up to 1,300,000,000 marks, while the Federal bill for compensation to direct victims of the Nazis will only total 945,000,000 marks and a similar sum by the various states.