The bill curtailing the 1966 federal budget–which includes deferment of compensation payments to about 150,000 Jewish victims of Nazism–was adopted today by the Bundestag, the lower house of the West German Parliament.
The bill would postpone for at least a year payment of a $50,000,000 installment due during 1966 to these victims under a new law enacted only last May. The affected category is made up of Nazi victims who were unable to file by the original West German compensation deadline of October 1953 because they were then in Iron Curtain countries. The special May law set up a $300,000,000 “hardship fund” to compensate these victims, with $50,000,000 installments to be paid out in each of the next two years, 1966 and 1967.
The Bundestag adopted the budget curtailment bill against the opposition of the Social Democratic Party. Alex Moeller, a Social Democratic member of Parliament, protested against the decision, telling the House that Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, who had signed the May legislation, “should have foreseen this matter” prior to the elections. The Chancellor’s party was returned to power in the general elections held in October. Mr. Moeller told Parliament that “the saving of money from the indemnification of persecutees is a politically and constitutionally doubtful step.”
Jewish organizations, particularly the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, denounced the bill while it was pending, and threatened to appeal against it to the West German Constitutional Court, the highest tribunal in the country, on the grounds of unconstitutionality.
Now that the Bundestag has adopted the bill, it must be sent to Parliament’s upper house, the Bundesrat. That house, however, has already seen the bill, which was sponsored by the Government. After a single reading in the Bundesrat, and its approval there, the draft must go to President Heinrich Luebke for signature. However, the President has no veto power and, under the constitution, must sign the measure.
Finally, the bill must be signed by Chancellor Erhard–who will certainly favor it, since his Government sponsored the bill. Then the bill will become law after it is published in the Official Gazette, unless flaws are found in the measure. An appeal to the Constitutional Court can be taken only after the bill has become law, 14 days after publication in the Official Gazette.
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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.
