Central Europe

Central Europe West Germany FOREIGN POLICY w'HEN Kurt Georg Kiesinger as chancellor for the first time ad- dressed thYVe BundestaH g (federal parliament) on December 13, 1966, he enumerated armaments control, relations with Eastern Europe and the United States, European economic integration and relations with France, the devel- oping countries, and the Near East as West Germany's major foreign policy concerns. The only concrete accomplishment in improving relations with Eastern Europe was the establishment of diplomatic ties with Rumania on January 31. Negotiations with Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia were pending. Foreign Minister Willy Brandt and Kiesinger made little headway in the United States. Kiesinger's visit to President Lyndon B. Johnson in August resulted in a vague communique referring to international teamwork, devel- opment of the Atlantic Alliance, and an intensified joint policy for relaxing East-West tensions. The Arab countries showed a consistently hostile attitude toward West Germany, before and after the Middle East crisis. The single exception was Jordan, which resumed diplomatic relations with Bonn on February 27. Brandt's efforts to mollify the Arabs and to revive "traditional German-Arab friendship" without endangering her cordial relations with Israel found no echo in the remaining nine Arab states that had broken off diplomatic relations with West Germany in 1965 (AJYB, 1966 [Vol. 67], p. 358). Germany's aid to underdeveloped countries which had totaled DM 2.95 billion (close to $1 billion) were curtailed in 1967 when financial difficulties dictated budgetary cuts. DOMESTIC AFFAIRS Attempts to improve the Federal Republic's economy overshadowed all other domestic questions. At the end of 1967 the number of unemployed was ap- 477 478 / AMERICAN JEWISH YEAR BOOK, 1968 proximately 670,000, about twice as high as in December 1966 (AJYB, 1967 [Vol. 68], p. 354); job vacancies were estimated at 350,000. Some 900,000 foreign workers were employed in the Federal Republic, compared with 1.3 million in June 1966 Financial aid for the recovery program of German industry (2.5 billion early in 1967; 5.2 billion between August and October) was largely limited to the electrical, chemical, and steel industries. Work on new construction was kept at a minimum. The critical situation in the coal industry remained basically the same. The chemical industry reported an increase of only 4 per cent in 1967 (7.5 per cent in 1966). Textile production was estimated to be 90 per cent of that in 1966. The first nine months of 1967 saw 2,968 bank- ruptcies, compared with 2,301 in 1966. German manufacturers sold 14.1 per cent fewer vehicles than in the preceding year, while the import of foreign cars increased by 16.1 per cent. In the first nine months of 1967 exports totaled DM 63.4 billion, an increase of 8.4 per cent over 1966; imports declined to DM 50.8 billion, or 5.9 per cent less than in 1966. Tourism declined by about 10 per cent. Yet, the Federal Bank, in an elaborate analysis of the situation and trend, reached optimistic conclusions and predictions in its October report. As a matter of fact, heavy industry reported an increase in production of 11 per cent over 1966. Christmas buying was satisfactory, though the introduction of a new "surplus-tax" which was to replace the old "turnover tax" on Jan- uary 1, 1968, probably influenced many who feared an increase of retail prices thereafter. How slight and slow the recovery actually was, could be seen from the officially quoted 0.5 per cent rise in the GNP (gross national product) for 1967, compared with an average rise of 7.9 per cent for the preceding six years (6.1 per cent in 1966). The federal budget, adopted by the cabinet in September, anticipated ex- penditures of DM 80.7 billion (over $20 billion) for 1968, or DM 3.6 billion more than in 1967. The largest portion (DM 21.8 billion) was earmarked for social welfare, including old-age and other pensions, restitution to victims of war and persecution, and aid to dependent children. DM 19.2 billion went for defense. The size of the German army was cut by 60,000, to 400,000 men; an increase of 48,000 had been planned. A considerable part of the large budget deficits anticipated by the Erhard government was to be covered by new tax legislation and compulsory saving introduced by the Kiesinger cabinet. The death on April 19 of Konrad Adenauer, the Federal Republic's first chancellor, at the age of 92 was mourned not only by his party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and friends; his former adversaries also paid homage to the "grand old man" who had won back for Western Germany the respect of the world. Heads of state and representatives of dozens of foreign governments came to his funeral which was viewed on television by an estimated 400 million people. WEST GERMANY / 479 The visit of the Shah of Iran and his wife to the Federal Republic and West Berlin (May 27 to June 4) gave rise to widespread student protests against his undemocratic regime. The fatal shooting of a student by the police during a demonstration in Berlin, on June 2, intensified unrest at the Free University of Berlin, and at many other universities. The long-sim- mering crisis at the Free University, in part was responsible for the forced resignation of Berlin's Lord Mayor Heinrich Albertz who was replaced in October by Klaus Schiitz, then state secretary in the Foreign Office; both were members of the Social Democratic party. FORMER NAZIS AND NAZI WAR CRIMES In April German judicial authorities published a statistical summary on the prosecution of Nazi criminals since the end of World War II. It reported that proceedings had been initiated against 73,793 persons, of whom 6,179 had been convicted, 85 to life imprisonment. Before capital punishment was abolished in the Federal Republic in May 1949, 12 persons had been sentenced to death. For a variety of reasons, such as acquittal or the death of defendants before the trials ended, 47,584 persons had not been convicted. A partial list of trials ending in 1967 follows. Munich, February 24: Former chief of the security police in the Nether- lands, Wilhelm Harster (62), former SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Wilhelm Zopf (58) and his police secretary Gertrud Slottke (64) were sentenced to 15, nine, and five years' imprisonment respectively, for complicity in the depor- tation of 94,398 Dutch Jews to death camps at Auschwitz and Sobibor. Bremen, March 14: Philipp Mensinger (45), an ethnic German from Yugo- slavia, who had been a guard at the Drohobycz and Boryslaw labor camps, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the unauthorized killing of eight Jews. Bielefeld, April 15: Former SS officer Lothar Heimbach (58), former SS officer Richard Dibus (54), former police officer Heinz Errilis (53), and former commander of the security police in the Bialystok district Wilhelm Altenloch (58) were sentenced to nine, nine, six-and-one-half, and five years* imprisonment, respectively, for complicity in the murder of 10,000 Jews. Weiden, April 25: Hugo Rochel (71), was sentenced to life imprisonment for complicity in the murder of a Jew in the Flossenbiirg (Northern Bavaria) camp. Fulda, May 11: Erich Schemel (45) was sentenced to four-and-a-half years' imprisonment for collaborating in the murder of five persons. Bremen, May 12: Former SS-Obersturmbannfiihrer Fritz Hildebrandt (64) was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 2,000 persons in Gali- cian forced-labor camps. Nuremberg, May 12: Former SS-Sturmbannfiihrer Anton Ipfling (69), was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 15 Jews in the Skarzy- sko-Kamienna forced-labor camp in Poland. 480 / AMERICAN JEWISH YEAR BOOK, 1968 Freiburg (Breisgau), May 18: Former Gestapo official Walter Thormeyer (57) was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment for complicity in the murder of nine persons. Baden-Baden, June 30: Former Oslo Gestapo chief Hellmuth Reinhardt was sentenced to five years in prison for complicity in the murder of Jews and Norwegian resistance fighters; the prosecution had asked for a life sentence. Stuttgart, September 15: Albert Widmann, former SS-Sturmbannfiihrer and a chemist in the Reich criminal police who helped design and test mobile gas chambers, was sentenced to six years and six months' imprisonment for complicity in the murder of at least 4,000 people. On March 15 a Brunswick (Braunschweig) court of appeals acquitted Franz Bernhard Hunke on ground of insufficient evidence. He had been sentenced by a Hanover court in 1965 to hard labor for life for the murder of the Jewish teacher Wilhelm Erich (AJYB, 1966 [Vol. 67], p. 349). In Stade, on May 10, a court of appeals reduced the sentence of George Marschall (63) from life imprisonment to five years at hard labor when it found no evidence of "willful" intent on his part in the hanging of Josef Fiener, a Jewish boy of Sdolbunov. The acquittal of three defendants in the first "euthanasia" trial which lasted nine months and ended on May 23, came as a complete surprise. Drs. Aquilin Ulrich (53), Heinrich Bunke (52), and Klaus Endruweit (53) had been instrumental in gassing close to 60,000 mental patients, ordered by Nazi decree. The court held that they had not been aware of committing crimes. Fritz Bauer, state attorney of Hesse, was seeking a reversal of the verdict. Major Nazi and war crime trials were still in process in Stuttgart, Darm- stadt, Cologne, Kiel, Frankfurt, Berlin, Miinster, Hagen, Braunschweig, Ham- burg, Wuppertal, and other cities.

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