German Parliamentary Body Vindicates Dr. Auerbach; Issues Report

The criminal charges against the late Dr. Philip Auerbach, postwar leader of German Jewry, are by implication repudiated in a report just issued by the Bavarian legislature’s “Auerbach Investigating Committee” after 31 public hearings and a probe lasting almost three years.

The Investigating Committee was set up in the spring of 1951, shortly after Dr. Auerbach’s arrest, to examine the conduct of those Bavarian civil servants and cabinet members whose functions had included supervision of the State Agency for Restitution and Indemnification, which was headed by Dr. Auerbach for more than four years. No neglect or dereliction of duty on the part of these officials can be shown, according to the 16-page final report of the inquiry group.

The allegations against Dr. Auerbach himself, which drove him to suicide after he had been sentenced by a court composed of Nazi judges, were not within the direct province of the committee. Yet its terms of reference made it inevitable that the investigation kept reverting to the personality of the Jewish leader and to the manner in which he discharged the duties of his office.

The formation of the Committee was proposed by Auerbach’s foes, and its members were anything but friendly towards him. Nonetheless, the final report implicitly vindicates him with regard to the many defamatory accusations that were presented to the public as established facts in a reckless campaign of mud-slinging.

The committee notes that he was not a proper bureaucrat in the German civil service tradition, but it repeatedly acknowledges that, had he been one, he would have been unable to cope with the chaotic conditions in Bavaria before currency reform, when more than 100, 000 Jewish displaced persons and tens of thousands of other Nazi victims clamored for aid. “Auerbach may have been energetic, industrious, meddlesome and talented,” concludes the Committee report.