Bundestag Decision on Statute of Limitations Evokes Mixed Reactions

Mixed reactions to the Bundestag’s vote to extend the statute of limitations for the prosecution of Nazi war criminals by four and a half years only came here this weekend from Jewish leaders and from organized German trade unions.

Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, accepted the Parliament’s action “basically,” but voiced a reservation. Now, he said, “one must wait and see” what further material on Nazi crimes will be found and used by German prosecutors.

Dr. Hendrick van Dam, general secretary of the Centreal Council of Jews in Germany, hailed the “great majority” by which the Bundestag passed the prolongation of the statute beyond the old cut-off date of May 8, 1965. Robert Kempner, former American prosecutor at the War Crimes Tribunal conducted by the Allied powers after the war, called the step “a practical solution.” But the West German Confederation of Labor labeled the Parliament action an “unsatisfactory compromise.”

Rabbi Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress, now visiting West Germany, called the vote “a tragedy for Germany” and told an audience of Berlin Jews that public opinion would be sharply critical of the decision. He said the proposed extension was “not sufficient.” The image of the new Germany throughout the world is delicate and no storm but only a slight breeze is “needed to destroy it,” he told a meeting of the Jewish community of Berlin.

Meanwhite, Chancellor Ludwig Erhard appointed Max Weber, a member of his Christian Democratic Party, to the post of Minister of Justice, vacated by Dr. Ewatd Bucher. The latter, who had insisted that no extension whatever be voted, resigned immediately after the Bundestag vote. He led his party, the Free Democrats, in voting against even the mild move finally approved by Parliament.