A captain in an Engineers Training Battalion was under suspension today in the first anti-Semitic scandal of the new West German armed forces, Capt. Niemann was accused of violent anti-Semitic insults against a half-Jewish enlisted man who was a volunteer. The officer was intoxicated.
The enlisted man, Corp. Von Elmpt, filed a complaint with the Bonn Defense Ministry. State Secretary Josef Rust promptly ordered suspension of the officer and disciplinary proceedings against him.
The Munich “Abendzeitung” in a front page editorial expressed astonishment that “unreconstructed Nazis with that Jew-baiting cast of mind have been commissioned as officers.” The editorial added: “Imagine what a Jewish, half-Jewish or quarter-Jewish soldier must feel when he has to stand at attention before such an officer, who before long will no doubt be wearing the decoration awarded him by the Jew killer, Hitler.”
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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.
