An administrative court here today granted a colonel’s pension to Franz von Papen, Vice-Chancellor of the Nazi Government under Adolf Hitler.
In 1957, the Finance Ministry of the State of Baden-Wurttemberg ruled that von Papen was not entitled to a pension, on the grounds that, in 1933, when Hitler assumed power, he supported the Nazi laws, including discriminatory legislation against Jews.
In von Papen’s plea to the court here, asking for a reversal, he stated that he had promised the late President von Hindenburg to “remain in Hitler’s Cabinet at all costs.” The court ruled that von Papen could not be denied his legal pension rights because “he had been unaware of the illegality of the Nazi legislation which he had supported.”
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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.
