Clemency shown to convicted Nazi war criminals by the American occupation authorities in Germany came in for blistering attack in the Canadian Parliament here in the general debate on the speech from the throne in which the government outlined its policies for the coming year.
David Croll, former Mayor of Toronto and a World War veteran, told the House that the release of the war criminals was a scandal which made the war crimes trials appear to be a farce. He warned against the rearmament of Germany declaring that rearmed West Germans might try to conquer eastern Germany to bring about a unification of Germany, or might refuse to fight against their Communist-dominated countrymen in the East, or might even decide to join the Russians.
“We are still dealing,” he declared, “with a people who are undemocratic and unrepentant, who consider themselves unfortunate and whose chief objective at present is to figure out the winning side and get on it. Fears of the rearming of Germany were not allayed when we read of the reappearance on the present scene of left-over and warmed-up Nazi generals and some of the manifestations of Fascism. Ex-German generals, former Nazi leaders and war criminals are starting to roll off the Allied amnesty assembly lines.”
Icon Crestohl, Zionist leader, who represents in parliament the Montreal-Cartier constituency, has asked the government whether it was consulted on the suspension of sentences on Nazis by the United States authorities in Germany. “Can the government inform the House whether the suspension of the sentences imposed on Nazi criminals is part of Gen. Eisenhower’s ‘Let bygones be bygones’ policy and was the government consulted prior to the general’s formation of such policy?”
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.
