A senior Federal state attorney has been suspended in Bonn and a Mayor of the North Sea island of Sylt is under investigation following the disclosure that, as high Nazi officials, they participated in the extermination of European Jewry.
The prosecuting attorney, Dr. Harry von Rosen-Hoewel, was suspended on the ground that he was “politically unsuited for his present office.” While the Opposition was demanding a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding his appointment, the West German Minister of the Interior Gerhard Schroeder said he had recently come into possession of documents signed by von Rosen-Hoewel as an official of the Hitler Ministry of the Interior. One of these called for the “ruthless use of the death sentence” against Jews in Eastern Europe.
The charges against Mayor Heinz Reinefarth assert that as an SS police general he commanded troops which crushed the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt with inhuman atrocities. The evidence was supplied by Polish authorities. Reinefarth has denied the charges, pointing out that a denazification court had cleared him.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.