The State Government of Baden Wuerttenberg said today it had started an investigation into Soviet charges that Erwin Schuele, chief prosecutor for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes Center in Ludwigsburg, participated in Nazi war crimes in occupied Russia.
A spokesman for the state government said that documents in support of the Soviet charges had been submitted to the West German Embassy. He said all of that material was transmitted to the Stuttgart general prosecutor.
The Communist campaign against Dr. Schuele began last February when the East German Communist news agency charged that Dr. Schuele had been a member of the Nazi Party, served as a Nazi court judge and had been a member of the SS. Dr. Schuele called those charges “a pack of lies” and said he had only been a candidate for Nazi Party membership. The Baden-Wuerttenberg government then said it had confidence in Dr. Schuele.
The Soviet charges said that Dr. Schuele allegedly committed war crimes as a member of the German army in Tchudowa, a town near Novgorod. Dr. Schuele said those charges also were without foundation.
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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.