A widely circulated German war veterans magazine challenged today payment by Germany of reparations to the State of Israel for injuries inflicted on the Jewish people during the Nazi regime.
The magazine, Deutsche Soldatenzeitung, attacked alleged “corruption” in the indemnification program and denied that there was any real or legal basis for the payment of reparations to the State of Israel. It argued this on the grounds that Israel had not even been in existence as a state at the time the Nazi crimes were perpetrated against the Jews.
“By the same token,” the neo-Nazi organ asserted, “we should have to indemnify the Jews in the United States of America and in the Soviet Union.” The paper recalled arguments in the Israeli Parliament in 1952 when the Luxembourg Agreement between West Germany and Israel was ratified, and expressed regrets that foes of the agreement had failed to vote it down.
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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.