Reagan: German Soldiers and Concentration Camp Victims Are Equal

President Reagan, defending his planned visit to a German military cemetery at Bitburg next month, said today that most of the 2,000 soldiers buried there were 18 year-old boys conscripted into the army and “they were victims just as surely as the victims of the concentration camps.”

The President, who made his remarks in response to questions at a White House meeting with a group of editors and publishers, said he would not cancel his visit to the cemetery because it would then appear that he had “caved in” to pressure.

“I think that it would be very harmful and all it would do is leave me looking as if I caved in in the face of some unfavorable attention,” Reagan told the group. His plan to lay a wreath at the cemetery where at least 30 members of the notorious Waffen SS are buried, created a furor in the Jewish community, especially as it followed cancellation of a projected visit to the site of the Dachau concentration camp.

Reagan repeated today, in response to questions, that cancellation of the Dachau visit was the result of a misunderstanding. He said he had been under the impression that an individual rather than the West German government had suggested it. But when Chancellor Helmut Kohl informed him otherwise, the cancellation was reversed, he said.

White House spokesman Larry Speakes said today that a suitable site for the President to pay tribute to the victims of Nazis will be recommended by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver when he returns here from West Germany tonight. Deaver, who went to Germany earlier to prepare for Reagan’s trip, was sent back this week to find an appropriate concentration camp or other site for the President to visit.