A 20-year old unemployed dental technician, whose father had served a long sentence in a Polish prison as a Nazi war criminal and died a year ago, was arrested here this weekend as the perpetrator of the series of swastika-smearing and Jewish cemetery desecrations that have rocked West Germany since the middle of June and have given rise to fears that a new underground Nazi organization was again at work in this country.
The youth, remanded for trial in Juvenile Court here, is Richard Woitzik. His father had been a member of the SS, Hitler’s elite guard. Various traces he had left at the scenes of his swastika daubing, including fingerprints and shoeprints, led investigators to the home of Woitzik’s mother, where he was apprehended. The local police chief said: “We hope the matter is ended now.” He added, however, that there are still suspicions that Woitzik may have been aided by others, and the probe of the existence of a possible, broader anti-Semitic group is still continuing.
Police said they found at Woitzik’s home portraits of Hitler, clipped from a book about Nazism, slogans like “Hitler Was Right, “which had appeared alongside many of the swastikas, and other pro-Nazi materials. The Bamberg incidents touched off a spate of similar swastika-daubing in various parts of West Germany. One of the problems facing investigators now is to determine whether the manifestations outside Bamberg had been stimulated by the acts in Bamberg, or may have been carried out by a group linked in some way to Woitzik.
The swastika plague started on the night of June 13, when several of the smearing of the Nazi symbol were found in Bamberg. The next day, it was discovered that 23 tombstones in the Jewish cemetery here had been engraved with the swastika and overturned. The incidents were considered so grave that Chancellor Ludwig Erhard came here to deliver an address denouncing the resurgence of anti-Semitism. A large mass meeting, addressed by the Mayor, was held at the Jewish cemetery, condemning anti-Semitism. Residents of Bamberg, where there are very few Jews, posted a $5,000 reward for the capture of the anti-Semites responsible. The city has voted to pay the cost of repairing the Jewish cemetery, expected to total about $5,000.
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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.
