Dr. F.E. Shinnar, head of the Israel Purchasing Mission in West Germany, and Baron von Mahs of the Bonn Ministry of Economics today signed an agreement covering Germany’s reparations schedule to Israel during the fiscal year beginning April 1.
The agreement, which was worked out in five weeks of negotiations between German and Israel teams each consisting of 12 experts, contains few major changes from the pattern set in last year’s agreement.
Mr. Shinnar, in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, expressed regret that Germany had used the so called escape clause to unilaterally set the total of reparations deliveries in the coming year at the equivalent of $59,500,000 in goods and services. The Luxembourg Agreement permitted Germany to pay from $59,500,000 to $73,800,000 annually. It was assumed that Germany would only resort to the lesser figure in the event that economic troubles developed in the German economy. In fact, Germany is enjoying an unprecedented prosperity.
ABOUT $20,000,000 GOES TO BRITAIN FOR OIL EXPORTS TO ISRAEL
Of the funds made available for next year, one-third will go to pay British Commonwealth countries for oil exports to Israel. The Germans will make payments from sterling accounts which they have. This allocation is approximately the same proportion of the total reparations as last year’s oil purchases, which amounted to about $18,000,000.
The remaining two-thirds of the reparations schedule is split fairly evenly between long-range investment goods and semi-manufactured or consumer products. Ferrous and non-ferrous metal products account for some $9,800,000, about the same as last year, while non-metal industrial products–covering a wide range from concrete to pharmaceuticals, chemicals and asbestos fabrics–account for only $9,500,000 as compared to $11,200,000 last year, Agricultural items, such as breeding stock and raw products for the production of margarine, have dropped from $7,000,000 to $2,900,000.
The largest increase is in products of the steel manufacturing industry, which includes such items as machinery and appliances, ships, machine tools, agricultural implements, electrical generators and structural steel products, as well as railway flatcars, passenger cars, welded tube and pipelines. In the fiscal year of 1954, Israel placed orders for some $9,500,000 worth of such goods, but next year it will receive $15,400,000 worth of goods, making this the largest of the five categories on the German schedule.
Service charges will rise next year from $3,600,000 to $4,300,000 for such items as freight insurance, administrative and other charges. One reason for the increase will be the anticipated greater use of German shipping to move reparations goods to Israel, while another will be payments scheduled to be made in Israel’s behalf to the Lutheran World Organization as compensation for German Protestant church property in Israel. By arrangement with the Conference on Jewish Material Claims, Israel will make available from its reparations funds certain amounts approved by the Claims Conference for relief work among Jews in West Germany and West Berlin.
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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.
