Gustav Sonnenhol, a well-known German economist–and a leader of the SS during the Hitler regime–was recommended by the Free Democratic Party today for the post of State Secretary in the newly created Development Ministry. Political circles here reported today that Chancellor Konrad Adenauer has approved Sonnenhol’s appointment to the post.
Sonnenhol joined the Nazi Party in 1930, three years before Hitler came to power as the head of the Reich. Later, he rose to leadership in the SS, Hitler’s super-elite corps which, during World War II, was used extensively for the annihilation of European Jewry. Adolf Eichmann, now under death sentence in Israel for directing the program for the mass murder of Jews, was a colonel in the SS. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg declared the SS a “criminal organization.”
Some political circles here expressed the belief today that, if Sonnenhol gets the job of State Secretary, another “Oberlander Case” may develop. Dr. Theodor Oberlander, formerly a member of the Adenauer Cabinet as Minister for Expellees, resigned from the Cabinet under fire of having been active in Nazi mass-murder activities. However, Dr. Hans Globke, State Secretary in Dr. Adenauer’s own Chancellery, is still in that post despite many accusations that he had helped draft the Nuremberg racist laws under the Hitler regime. Globke has consistently denied these charges.
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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.
