Dr. Theodor Oberlaender, West German Minister for Refugees, will resign from the Cabinet “shortly,” the chairman of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s Christian Democratic party announced last night in apparent contradiction of an earlier announcement by high party leaders that the controversial former Nazi party member resigned yesterday.
The announcement that Dr. Oberiaender, a target for months of complicity in the 1941 massacre of Polish intellectuals and Jews in Lemberg in Nazi-occupied Poland, would resign soon was made by Kai Uwe von Hassel, CDP chairman, as a new storm began to develop on the issue.
The opposition Social Democratic Party warned last night that if Dr. Oberlaender’s resignation did not become final before May 5, the party would open “a stormy debate” in the Bundestag, the lower house of the West German Parliament, on his past. May 5 is the date scheduled for Bundestag debate on the budget for the Ministry for Refugees.
The apparent contradiction in Dr. Oberlaender’s resignation plans was the newest development in a series of moves to ease him out of his post. Earlier this month, it was reported that the Social Democrats had agreed to drop demands for a Parliamentary debate on the Minister after an agreement was reached with the Christian Democrats under which Dr. Oberlaender left on a vacation with the understanding he would retire May 8 on a pension.
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