Herbert Blankenhorn, newly appointed West German Ambassador to Britain, arrived here today to take up his post and refused to discuss an allegation that he had been a “nominal” member of the Nazi Party during the Hitler regime. “There is no need,” he said, “for me to give any explanation about my background. Anyone who has lived in Germany during the last 20 years know exactly what I had been and what I had done.”
Tom Driberg, a Labor member of Parliament, made the Nazi membership charge against Mr. Blankenhorn last week, stating that the German was “persona non grata because of his Nazi past.”
A member of the German diplomatic corps during the Hitler era, Mr. Blankenhorn had been screened after the war by the British occupation authorities in Germany. He was said to have been one of the nominally pro-Hitler Germans who had plotted the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Hitler.
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