Germans Show Concern over Demonstrations in Israel Against Bonn Envo

The Rev. Heinrich Grueber, the Lutheran clergyman noted for his anti-Nazi activities during the war, and the only German called by the Israeli prosecution to testify at the trial of the late Adolf Eichmann, appealed today for a cessation of the demonstrations that have been staged in Israel against the acceptance of Dr. Rolf Pauls as West Germany’s first Ambassador-designate to Israel.

In a letter to Israel’s Foreign Minister Golda Meir, Rev. Grueber appealed to her to try to see to it that “the demonstrations cease, since they are prejudicing Israel’s own interests and the work of Israel’s friends in Germany.” At the same time, the 73-year-old clergyman, whom the Nazis deported to a concentration camp for having rescued Jewish children, sent a similar appeal to the Association of Former Concentration Camp Inmates in Israel. He offered to come to Israel “to discuss this matter, not as a representative of the German Federal Government but as an old camp comrade.”

(In Jerusalem, meanwhile, another demonstration was staged, demanding that the Israel Government reconsider its acceptance of Dr. Pauls as Germany’s Ambassador-designate. Participating in the demonstration were members of organizations composed of former partisans, ghetto fighters, concentration camp inmates and survivors injured by the Nazis. “We who defended the honor of our people, ” the organizers of the Joint demonstration told the Israel Government, “speaking in the name of the six million who died in the holocaust, will never accept this desecration of Israel’s honor.” The principal objection to Dr. Pauls is due to the fact that he was an officer in the German army during the Hitler regime.)

Rev. Grueber’s appeals against the demonstrations illustrated growing West German concern about the kind of reception Dr. Pauls may receive in Tel Aviv when he arrives there to take up his post, about the middle of this month. The No. 2 man designated for his mission, Alexander Toeroek, is scheduled to go to Tel Aviv this week to make advance arrangements for the housing of the new German Embassy there. He will also make the initial, formal contacts with the Israeli officials regarding the mission’s plans.