Charges by the Swiss press that Bonn’s proposed new Ambassador to Switzerland, Dr. Ernest Guenther Mohr, was responsible for the deportation and death of thousands of Dutch Jews has aroused consternation and a rash of denials from the West German Foreign Ministry. Meanwhile, the Ministry has had no word from Switzerland which is still investigating the charges against Dr. Mohr before saying whether he would be acceptable as a German envoy.
A spokesman for the Bonn Foreign Ministry asserted that Dr. Mohr served in the German Embassy in The Hague for only a short while before being transferred to Rio de Janeiro in 1941, before the deportations began in Holland. It was also pointed out that Dr. Mohr’s wife is half-Jewish. He married her in March, 1941.
The Netherlands Bureau for War Documentation is said to have verified the assertions that Dr. Mohr was not connected with the deportation of Jews from the Netherlands. The bureau is an official agency.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.