Dr. Theodor Oberlaender, Federal Minister for Refugees will appear before a Tribunal of Honor of Chancellor Adenauer’s Christian Democratic Party to reply to charges that he participated in the 1941 massacres of the Jews in Lemberg during the Nazi occupation of Poland, it was reported here today.
Dr. Oberlaender, himself a member of the Christian Democratic Party, has not denied that he was a member of the Nazi Party during the war but he has denied that he was involved in the Lemberg massacre. The Tribunal of Honor would not examine the political aspects of his career, but whether or not his activities during the Nazi period were “dishonorable, ” it was explained.
(From The Hague it was reported today that Dr. Oberlaender will be invited to testify again before the international committee there investigating the Lemberg, massacre in Nazi-held Poland.)
Meanwhile, Hannes Schneider, chairman of the League of Christian Democratic Students, and another leader of the group, Rudolf von Roegen, today resigned from the League, after reiterating demands that Dr. Oberlaender resign from the Cabinet. The League adopted a resolution a week ago calling for Dr. Oberlaender’s resignation.
The resignation of Dr. Oberlaender from the Cabinet has long been demanded by the Social Democratic Party. Last week it was also urged in “Die Welt, ” an influential weekly of the Christian Democratic Party of which Dr. Oberlaender is now a member. The publication said that Dr. Oberlaender “had been sometimes a Democrat, sometimes a Nazi before 1945, according to which way the wind blew. “
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