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New Rash of Swastika-daubings Reported from West and East Germany

April 27, 1961
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A new rash of swastika-daubings and other anti-Semitic manifestations has broken out in West Germany, in connection with the current trial of Adolf Eichmann, who is facing a court in Israel for his direction of the annihilation of 6,000,000 European Jews under the Nazi regime.

From Dusseldorf it was reported today that Nazi slogans and swastikas have been smeared on walls and on automobiles in the Dusseldorf suburb of Wermelkirchen. At Hamburg, 27 large cardboard swastikas were found last night on the lawn in front of the new synagogue there. Restaurants and other public buildings in various parts of Germany have been daubed with slogans proclaiming “Freedom for Eichmann” and “Heil Eichmann.” Swastikas have also been found painted on the walls of a Christian church at Emmerich.

A first lieutenant of the East German people’s police, who fled to asylum in West Berlin, declared today that anti-Semitic smearings occur now throughout East Germany and – that in most cases the vandals are never found. The police officer, whose name was with-held, said that police in Eberswalde, an East German city near Berlin, investigated 34 smearing incidents recently and found the vandals in only four of the cases.

He said such smearings of swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans appear frequently on the walls of state-owned enterprises, buildings of state-trade organizations and even district administration buildings.

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