The stand of the Communists on the pro-Nazi laws passed recently by the Austrian Parliament to the detriment of Jewish victims of Nazism is outlined here in the official Communist organ “Volkstimme.”
The paper says that the Americans have objected to the Austrian amnesty laws “not because they are fervent anti-Fascists but because they do not want to give up ‘the past’ as a means of extortion of those former Nazis who refuse to jump on the American bandwagon of the government.”
The Communist paper further contended that the Americans “interweave the amnesty laws with the indemnification claims filed with the Austrian state by former Austrian citizens who were meanwhile naturalized in America.” The real issue at stake, the paper claimed, is “the property of Rothschild and those former Austrian capitalists who are now Americans and whose interests are protected by America at any occasion,” the article states.
On the other band, the American-sponsored newspaper “Wiener Kurier” commenting in a front-page editorial on the pro-Nazi laws, says that although the fate of those who suffered unjustly during the war is sometimes looked upon as a strictly local matter, its tie to the thoughts and emotions of millions who shared in that conflict is such as to give it universal meaning. Therefore the matter cannot be isolated form the western community and the question of Nazi amnesty and restitution in Austria is far more than an internal affair, continued the “Kurier.”
It also bears directly on Austria’s relations with other governments. The London Declaration of 1943 deciding to undo the Nazi’s international looting and to declare void any transfer of property made by the Nazis in the countries they had despoiled applies directly to Austria, the article specifies. The paper then declares that the recently adopted “amnesty legislation” would in practice grant relief to the ex-Nazis, without extending any comparable aid to their victims.
Although the American Government has expressed its concern over the general tenor of this amnesty legislation it by no means opposes an amnesty as such, the article states, adding that it merely opposes one that would again victimize the victims of Nazism. The Americans look on Austria not as an ex-Nazi nation but as one that was a victim of the external Nazi plague, the paper goes on, and adds that the Austrian wish to reach a quick and convenient solution is comprehensible.
The American sponsored organ agrees with the idea of a Nazi amnesty but demands it as a “reasonable space, with circumspect deliberation and certainly not before the pledges of restitution of those whom they despoiled here have been made good.” The paper also wished “good riddance” to all those Nazis who might move over to the Communist camp as the result of not having given full accommodations at once. It added that “surely men who have the welfare of the great mass at heart will never let themselves be misled by the attempted blackmail of a few.”
In conclusion, the article points out that while Americans understand the particular problems which Austria is trying to overcome at home, Austria will understand the basic principles for which her western friends must contend everywhere, now as before.
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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.
