The Federal R###c of Germany has paid, in goods and credits to Israel, more than 100 million dollars since April 1, 1953, according to “Germany’s Moral Debt,” a study ### German-Israel agreement by Kurt R. Grossman, published today.
Of this amount Israel has spent $35,000,000 for urgently needed oil from Britain and $28,000,000 for ferrous and nonferrous metals and other essential raw materials from West Germany. The balance was spent on long range investment projects for the development of the country’s transportation and communication system and the exploitation of its natural resources.
The fully documented story of the German-Israel agreements, its dramatic background and the many crises that it weathered is told for the first time in “Germany’s Moral Debt.” The book is published by Public Affairs Press in Washington and contains a preface by Earl G. Harrison, former Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization.
Mr. Grossman, a native of Germany where he was once secretary general of the League for Human Rights, has been actively engaged in Jewish organizational work in this country for the past ten years. He has published several comprehensive studies of the Jewish refugee and DP problems. In 1952 and 1953 he visited West Germany in connection with the then pending negotiations.
The writer points out that the German-Israel agreement, now in its second year in operation, stems from a policy first defined January 5, 1943, when the Allied Governments reserved the right to declare invalid “any transfers of, or dealings with property rights and interests situated in the territories which have come under the occupation or control of the government with which they are at war.”
Earl G. Harrison, who was President Truman’s special envoy to the DP camps right after World War II, states in his preface that West Germany’s leaders have regained much of their country’s moral losses as a result of the agreement with Israel, But final judgment on this score must be reserved, he says, until Germany has discharged her obligations completely.
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