Four separate investigations have been launched into charges that the Offenbach city administration cancelled the appointment of a doctor as head of a local municipal women’s hospital because he was a Jew, Reuters reported this week-end. At the same time, Dr. Herbert Lewin, the Jewish doctor involved, declared in Berlin that he will appeal to Christian Stock, Premier of Hesse, against the Offenbach administration’s action.
Independent inquiries have been launched by the American Military Government in Hesse, the Hesse Minister for the Interior, the Hesse Office for Denazification, and the German Social Democratic Party. Meanwhile, two members of the city administration have admitted that the charges are true, and the Offenbach city council will meet tomorrow to hear the members of the administration explain their action.
The original charges were reported by a Frankfurt German newspaper which stated that Dr. Lewin’s appointment was cancelled because the Deputy Mayor of Offenbach objected to a Jew heading the hospital. The Deputy Mayor, Dr. J. Kasperkowitz, was quoted as having said that the women of Offenbach could not be expected to be “handed over to a Jewish physician as one has to take into consideration that he has resentments against non-Jewish persons.”
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