The court of assizes here rejected yesterday a request to have West German Chancellor Kurt Kiesinger called as a defense witness in the trial of Adolf Beckerle, the German Minister in Sofia, Bulgaria, during World War II, who is being tried as an accessory to the murder of more than 11,000 Jews. The court, in announcing its decision, said it was motivated by “purely jurisdicial considerations.”
Beckerle. whose trial opened last November, has contended that when he participated in the deportation of the victims from Bulgaria to the Treblinka death camp in Poland in 1943, he was unaware of the fate that awaited the Jews. Dr. Kiesinger, who was deputy leader of the radio department of the Nazi Foreign Ministry in charge of propaganda and counter-propaganda, was believed to be the only witness who could bear out Beckerle’s claim that the Sofia legation was not on the mailing list for Foreign Ministry documents which kept Nazi diplomatic missions abroad informed of the policy to annihilate the Jews, Beckerle’s defense counsel demanded Dr. Kiesinger’s testimony to prove his case.
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