Dr. Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of the West German Republic, is to make an important declaration to Parliament on general Jewish questions including restitution to Nazi victims, measures to combat anti-Semitism in Germany and achievement of peace with the State of Israel, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned today.
It is understood that Dr. Adenauer will point out that the German Constitution does not permit discrimination on racial grounds against any part of the German people and will call for public support of this policy, urging educational institutions to place emphasis on this point. He is also expected to announce plans for inclusion of measures against anti-Semitism in the legal code.
Circles close to the German Chancellor said that in his discussion of Germany’s obligation to make moral and material restitution to victims of Nazism, Dr. Adenauer will assert that the unspeakable crimes committed against the Jews in the name of Germany were unknown to the German people as a whole and that, in fact, many suffered as a result of opposing them.
Dr. Adenauer will also, it is learned, announce his government’s intention to extend restitution legislation as a preliminary measure to opening negotiations with the State of Israel and world Jewish organizations. The German cabinet is said to have approved this plan. A recent statement by Dr. Adenauer stressed the importance of clarifying the West German Republic’s relations with Israel and the world Jewish organizations.
(In New York tonight, Dr. Israel Goldstein, chairman of the western hemisphere executive of the World Jewish Congress, said that while Chancellor Adenauer may be personally free of the taint of Nazism, he had placed notorious ex-Nazis in high public office and had failed to take strong action to combat neo-Nazism.)
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.
