Baron Richard Von Weizsaecker, who will be sworn in on July I as the sixth. President of the West German Federal Republic, is widely known as a politician friendly to Israel who has always demonstrated deep sympathy toward the Jewish people.
Weizsaecker, a member of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was overwhelmingly elected last week by the Federal Parliament to succeed President Karl Carstens who has completed his five year term in what is largely a ceremonial office.
Carstens and his predecessor, President Walter Scheel, ha both been members of the Nazi party during the tenure of the Third Reich. While both professed sympathy and solidarity with Jews, there was always a lingering suspicion that they were seeking to enhance their personal reputations. Weizsaeck a Wehrmacht officer during World War II, was one of the few survivors of the group of senior officers will attempted to assassinate Hitler in 1944.
Although his father, the late Baron Ernst Weizsaecker, was a Nazi and served a two-year prison term after the war for his part in deporting Jews, the President-elect is considered sincere in his friendship toward the Jewish people and Israel. A former Mayor of West Berlin, he is said to view the reunification of Jerusalem under Israeli rule as a source of hope that the two Berlins, the former capital of Germany, some day will be reunited.
On a visit to Jerusalem in 1982, when he was still Mayor of West Berlin, Weizsaecker pointedly expressed hope that the division of his home city will eventually end.
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.
