Political sources reported today that the West German Parliament, acting before the opening of the trial on April 11 of Nazi mass murderer Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, will pass a joint resolution condemning the crimes committed by Eichmann and his aides.
The plan for the resolution, it was reported, reflected concern of West German political leaders about the possible impact of the findings of the trial on West Germany’s position in the “western family of nations.” They were reported fearful that “old wounds” would be reopened and that world opinion would react to the trial revelations by condemning the German people.
Reports have been circulating in Berlin that the East German regime will mark the opening of the trial with publication of a new list of persons involved in the Nazi regime who are now in the West German administration, diplomatic service and judiciary. The list, it was reported, will be published in many languages, including those of Asian and African countries.
In a related development, the eighth of a series of 14 programs on the Third Reich, “The SS State,” was telecast today on the West German television network. The series was produced by the Stuttgart and Cologne broadcasting stations. The 40-minute film on the SS depicted the terror exercised against the churches and the political foes of the Nazi regime, with special attention to the persecution of Jews.
The film opened with a portrayal of the “boycott” of April 1, 1933 and traced the hate-mongering of Julius Streicher’s pornographic and anti-Semitic publication “Der Stuermer” and the ensuing “spontaneous actions” instigated against Jews in Germany by Nazi storm-troopers and the SS. The film then showed the “final phase” of the persecutions, covering the Nuremberg race laws of 1935 and the burning of synagogues in November 1938. The program ended with an account of the murder of Jews by SS execution squads “behind the lines of advancing German troops” and in the extermination camps of Auschwitz, Treblinka and Maidanek.
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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.
