The German press reports today that West Germany “has turned a cold shoulder” to a proposal that she make available to Israel a loan of $70,000,000 on account of her reparations payments to the Jewish State.
“Die Welt,” leading German daily newspaper here, says that Israel had suggested that the loan be made out of the huge surplus which West Germany has accumulated with the European Payments Union. Israel, the paper says, proposed that the loan be granted as an advance against payments on German obligations under the German-Israel Reparations Treaty. “The government has given the suggestion a cold reception due to the great need for capital for the German economy,” Die Welt says.
The Israel Purchasing Mission in Germany has declined to comment on the report, except to state that Israel has never sought a cash loan of the kind indicated, but has explored the possibility of expediting delivery of reparations goods in accordance with the terms of the German-Israel Reparations Treaty.
NAZIS DEMAND INDEMNIFICATION; WERE INTERNED BY U.S. AUTHORITIES
Meanwhile, it was reported today from Frankfurt that more than 2,000 militant Nazis, at a rally near Kassel, voiced a demand for indemnification payments for time spent in internment camps. U.S. Military Government authorities considered them dangerous security threats, due to the high offices they occupied or the exceptionally fervent fanaticism they exhibited.
Under the name of “Association of Former Internees,” these Nazis banded together to press their claims and to urge that all denazification court convictions be expunged from the record. A questionnaire circulated prior to the rally asked for the names of “former internment camp comrades who now hold key positions in economic life.”
Featured speaker was Professor Friedrich Grimm, a prominent rightist jurist and admirer of Hitler, who found no fault with the perversion of the administration of justice for Nazi ends during the Third Reich, but who now spearheads a campaign against “political encroachments on the administration of justice,” a designation he employs to describe the punishment of Nazi crimes. “It is intolerable that human beings are judged on their political past, and we must put an end to it,” he declaimed in calling for a general amnesty on behalf of all war criminals.
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