Although $15,700,000 had been appropriated for the 1954-55 Federal budget, the West German Treasury spent only $5,700,000 for payments to Nazi victims under the Federal Indemnification Law, it was revealed on the floor of the Bundestag by Social Democratic spokesman Heinrich Ritzel.
This reduction is all the more significant, Herr Ritzel pointed out, when it is borne in mind that–according to an official estimate by Minister of Finance Fritz Schaeffer himself–the Federal Indemnification Law will require expenditures of $952 million between 1952 and 1962, or an average of $95 million a year.
In the 1952 agreement signed in Luxembourg by Dr. Nahum Goldmann and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, the Federal Republic undertook to carry out the entire compensation program within ten years. In the almost three years that have gone by, total compensation disbursements by both the Federal Treasury and the individual states are estimated at less than $100 million. Hence West Germany must make an annual average of $125 million available for the next seven years, if she is to meet her commitments.
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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.
