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Ex-nazis Revealed As Still Holding High West German Posts

August 22, 1956
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While one ex-Nazi here was fined $1,400 and ordered deprived of his pension rights for his anti-Jewish activities during the Hitler regime, 25 officials were disclosed here today as holding executive posts in spite of their Nazi records.

Of the 25, one is Hans Lehmann, who was one of the six highest-ranking officers in command of Hitler’s Storm Troops under the Nazi regime. It was disclosed today that Lehmann is now an inspector on the staff of the West German War Graves Commission, touring abroad to supervise the upkeep of German military cemeteries. He was never “denazified” because he had refused to appear before the denazification board which, just the same, fined him $350.

The 24 other former Nazis, all officials in the Criminal Police department of North Rhine Westphalia, held leading ranks in the Nazi SS. Their employment now in executive positions has been confirmed by Hubert Biernath, North Rhine Westphalia’s Minister of the Interior.

The ex-Nazi who drew the heavy fine from this city’s denazification board is Herbert Heinsch, who had been the Nazi Party’s plant boss at the Moabit electrical works under Hitler. It was disclosed at his hearing that he had beaten a 60-year-old German laborer because the latter had told a friend that “Jews are human beings too.”

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