Utilizing the current Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem as a pretext, Communist East Germany today renewed long-standing charges against-West Germany, accusing the Bonn Government of harboring ex-Nazis and allegedly “re-employing in high office Nazis who were responsible for the murder of Jews. “
The charges, often voiced before by East Germany, were repeated in a 93-page brochure issued today in East Berlin, entitled “Eichmann, Henchmen, Accomplices, Men Behind the Scenes.”
The pamphlet, claiming that East Germany has barred from responsible positions “any person connected directly or indirectly with the Nazi crimes, ” stated that the Bonn Foreign Office has chosen as ambassadors to Arab countries men who “were co-responsible” for the deportation of French and Belgian Jews to death camps. Those named were Dr. Werner von Bergen, West German Ambassador to Iraq, and Dr. Hans Schwarzmann, Bonn’s Ambassador to Lebanon,
Two members of the West German Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament, were also named. Both are members of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s Christian Democratic party. The two are Hermann Gonring, said to have had a part in the deportation of 3, 000, 000 Dutch Jews; and Duke Otto von Bismarck, asserted to have aided the deportation of 4, 000 Jews from Rome.
According to the Communist charges, two former close accomplices of Eichmann are living peacefully in West Germany. They were named as Walter Huppenkothen, said to have been one of Eichmann’s superior officers in the Gestapo; and Konrad Gemmecker, former commander of the Westerbork concentration camp in Holland.
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.
