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U.S. Refuses Information on Nazi Affiliation of Bonn Ministers

March 15, 1960
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An American ban on release of information to newspapers by the Nazi documentation center in Berlin is being supported by the British authorities, the London News Chronicle charged today.

The newspaper’s German correspondent said he had asked the American-controlled documents center for information on the former Nazi party affiliations of two members of the Bonn Cabinet and on Dr. Hans Globke, head of the Chancellory, who wrote the legal interpretations of the Nuremberg anti-Jewish laws under the Nazi regime.

When this information was refused him on the grounds that information was supplied by the center only to friendly governments, the correspondent said he asked the British Embassy to sponsor his request. The Embassy, however, reminded him of the American policy and said that “in view of this policy of the U.S.A. authorities who have the responsibility for the documents center, it would raise obvious difficulties for Her Majesty’s Government to sponsor your request.”

The newspaper, which featured the story under the headline: “U.S.Clamps Down On Nazi Secrets, ” said the fact that Britain had no control over the archives of captured Nazi documents had come as a shock to British officials who had thought that the documents center, although in the care of the Americans, was a tripartite responsibility.

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