Claus von Amsberg, the West German diplomat and former member of the Hitler Youth Movement whose bet rothal to Crown Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands has evoked widespread opposition among the Dutch people, asserted today in a television interview that he had always rejected anti-Semitism.
“I can never understand why Jews as Jews should be ill-treated,” be told the television audience. “I have always refused to take part in Jew-baiting. Anti-Semitism never entered my mind while I was at school.” He contended he had been “shuttled into” the Hitler Youth movement. He said that as a prisoner of war in Italy, he saw pictures of Nazi concentration camps shown by American army officers and was appalled by the film. “I was never aware of such cruelties,” he declared.
It was reported here today that von Amsberg had been initially scheduled to be First Secretary at the projected West Germany Embassy in Israel.
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