An official of the Central Council of Jews in West Germany resigned Wednesday under fire from its leader for insisting that Jews should not have demanded the resignation of former Bundestag president Philipp Jenninger.
Michael Fuerst stepped down as a vice chairman of the council after its chairman, Heinz Galinski, denounced him on national television.
At issue was the speech Jenninger delivered at a special session of the Bundestag Nov. 10, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the first publically organized pogrom in the Third Reich.
It was widely interpreted as a justification rather than condemnation of Nazi outrages and precipitated walkouts by more than 50 parliamentarians.
The international furor was such that Jenninger, a rising politician in Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s governing Christian Democratic Union, resigned the following day.
Jenninger, said to be friendly toward Jews and supportive of Israel, insisted that his speech was intended to depict the state of mind in Germany in 1938 that allowed atrocities such as Kristallnacht.
Fuerst was the only German Jewish leader to take him at his word.
While Galinski joined in the sharp criticism of Jenninger at home and abroad, Fuerst, speaking on prime time German television, said it was a mistake to demand Jenninger’s resignation because people would blame “the Jews” for undue intervention in party polities.
Moreover, according to Fuerst, the Bundestag president had given a factual and fair exposition of how the German people were taken in by Hitler.
He said that was very important because it demonstrated that a very large majority of Germans followed the Nazis enthusiastically.
Observers here believe that Fuerst’s resignation may set the stage for further upheaval within the central body of the Jewish community.
It had been dominated for two decades by the late Werner Nachmann, who died suddenly last January.
He was succeeded by the outspoken Galinski, who exposed Nachmann as an embezzler of reparations funds entrusted by the Bonn government to the council.
Galinski has been accused by some colleagues of being too ambitious for personal prestige.
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.
