German Municipality Withdraws Nomination of Jewish Physician to Head City Hospital

The Offenbach city administration today denied a report by the independent “Frankfurter Rundschau” here that it has withdrawn the nomination of a Jewish physician to be head of the city’s women hospital because of his racial origin, Reuters reported.

The city administration officially declared that “purely objective” reasons had caused the final nomination of another candidate. The paper had claimed that the deputy mayor, Dr. A. Kasperkowitz, had protested against the nomination of the Jewish physician–Dr. Herbert Levin–on the grounds that “Offenbach women could not be expected to be handed over to a Jewish physician as one has to take into consideration that he has resentments against non-Jewish persons.

The official denial did not mention the newspaper’s report which said that Dr. Levin had already been voted as head of the Offenbach hospital by a majority decision of the city administration. It was not possible to obtain any statement from the city administration as to whether or not and on what grounds this reported first decision was revoked, the Reuters report said. The denial stated that the final nomination of another candidate was “the result of considerations taking into account merely objective interests and the interests of the city of Offenbach.”