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Economist rues ‘outrageous’ comparison

October 29, 2008

A German Jewish leader accepted the apology of a prominent German economist for comparing the scapegoating of bank managers today with the persecution of Jews in Germany.

Charlotte Knobloch, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, on Tuesday told Hans-Werner Sinn that she hoped "it was a one-time occurrence," according to news reports.

Sinn, the president of the Munich-based Ifo economic research institute, had said in Monday’s edition of Berlin’s Tagesspiegel newspaper that "in every crisis there are guilty parties sought, scapegoats," adding that Jews in Germany were blamed for the worldwide economic crisis of 1929, "and today it is the managers."

Central Council General Secretary Stephan Kramer in the New Ruhr/Rhein Times on Monday said Sinn’s comparison was "outrageous, absurd and absolutely out of place."

"It would be news to me that bank managers were beaten up, murdered or confined in concentration camps," Kramer said.

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