The Mayor of a West German town who suggested that “a few rich Jews should be slain” in order to balance the budget, has resigned under a barrage of criticism. Wilderich Von Mierbach of Korschenbroich, a town of 27,000 in North Rhine-Westphalia, said he was quitting to avoid further damage to West Germany’s image abroad and to the process of German-Jewish reconciliation.
Von Mierbach made the anti-Semitic remark at a meeting of the town council’s budget committee last December. The local newspaper, owned by a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Mayor’s party, suppressed it but it came to general media attention last month and triggered outrage.
Von Mierbach offered an apology. But the Jewish community in nearby Dusseldorf filed a law suit and calls for his resignation came from non-Jewish as well as Jewish quarters.
Last Friday the Mayor said he’d had enough and could no longer take the media pressure. Word from headquarters of the CDU in Bonn that he could no longer rely on its support apparently prompted his decision to leave office.
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.
