The Simon Wiesenthal Center at Yeshiva University announced today that it has discovered that the German-American National Political Action Committee (GANPAC), a Santa Monica-based organization promoting a new university named after Dr. Wernher von Braun, the German rocket scientist who developed the V-2s for Nazi Germany, has links to the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), the California-based group which publishes numerous books and periodicals claiming that the Holocaust was a “Zionist hoax.”
Dr. Charles Weber, a professor of German who is on the editorial board of the IHR, also serves on the steering committee for the proposed university. The Wiesenthal Center confirmed this information to Kelly Cooper, on NBC-TV investigative reporter for WAFF-TV in Huntsville, Alabama, who was looking into GANPAC claims of widespread German-American support for the university.
CLAIMS WIDESPREAD SUPPORT
An October 5, 1983 press release issued by GANPAC announced plans to raise $15 million for the university which would be situated on a 40-acre site in Huntsville, the community where many former Nazi scientists were brought to during the 1950’s to assist the United States’ fledgling rocket and space program, the Wiesenthal Center reported.
The press release asserted that the project had garnered financial support from leading German-American organizations, including the Steuben Society, and implied that the goals of the project would meet with the approval of West German leaders such as Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
The release also asserted that the university would be “countering political philosophy of over 10,000 Marxist professors currently practicing in American colleges and universities.” The Wiesenthal Center noted that the release failed to mention that von Braun’s widow did not approve of the project.
SAYS GROUP OBSCURES ITS REAL AIMS
Last November, Mayor Joe Davis of Huntsville was informed by Walt Wiesman, a former colleague of von Braun and a member of the local Chamber of Commerce who was on GANPAC’s mailing list, that the organization which claimed on its letterhead that it is “representing the interests of the 52 million Americans of German descent, this nation’s largest minority” was, in fact, obscuring its real aims.
Investigation of GANPAC showed that it was actually a group dedicated to whitewashing the crimes of the Nazi era, according to the Wiesenthal Center. Its recent newsletters labelled the television films, “Holocaust,” “Winds of War,” and “Blood and Honor” as anti-German hate films and called the Holocaust “an exaggeration.”
Additional documents obrained by the Wiesenthal Center show that three major German-American cul- tural groups — the Steuben Society, the Catholic Society of America, and the German-American National Congress – purported to have backed the proposed van Braun university were never asked for any support from GANPAC nor would they ever support such an undertaking.
Last month, Mayor Davis told the Huntsville Times, which had assigned its own investigative reporter to check out the proposed university venture, that the “stated plans might endanger the sound personal relationship and mutual trust that have persisted here among native citizens, German-Americans and residents from many other cultures for more than 30 years.”
DENIES HOLOCAUST TOOK PLACE
Despite mounting local opposition, there is no indication at this point that GANPAC is scrapping its plan. Hans Schmidt, head of GANPAC and secretary-treasurer of the Wemher von Braun University Foundation, claimed last month in an interview with the Huntsville Times that the ideology promoted by his organization is “traditional … somewhat right of center … the same kind of thinking the forefathers of America had. ” Asked by the Times whether he believed that six million Jews died in the Holocaust, Schmidt replied: “No, a flat no.”
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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.
