Jewish circles here are deeply interested in a memorandum by the state government of Baden-Wuerttemberg attacking the Federal Government’s penny-pinching approach to the question of compensation to victims of Nazism.
The 88-page memorandum calls of speedy passage of an indemnification law and criticizes a draft measure adopted by the Upper House” of the German Parliament over a month ago. The document was written by Dr. Otto Kuester, former deputy chief of the German negotiations team to The Hague reparations conference with Israel and the Jewish Claims Conference.
In a preface to the memorandum, Dr. Relnhold Maier, Minister-President of the state, attacks attempts at cutting down the claims of the victims and warns that such action would jeopardize the moral effect of the measure “to an extent quite out of proportion” to the proposed sayings. Dr. Maier, who is also head of the Upper House of the Federal Parliament, expressed satisfaction over the scheduled passage of an indemnification law by this session of Parliament.
It is hoped here that the document will have a beneficial effect on the negotiations between officials of the Jewish Claims Conference and German Finance Ministry officials which are scheduled to start here within a few days.
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