THE JEWISH NEW

Incorporating The Detroit Jewish

Chronic-re

commencing with issue

Does ThiS Mean Repentance?

of July 20, 1951

Member American Association of English,,fe. wish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National Editorial
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PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor and Publisher

SIDNEY SHMARAK

CAR.MI M. SLOMOVITZ

r

Advertising Manager

Business Manager

A NEW TREE GROWS IN Aint I N

CHARLOTTE HYAMS

City Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 11th day of Adar I, 5725, the following scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion: Exod. 27:20-30:10; prophetical portion: Ezekiel 43:10-27.

Licht benshen, Friday, Feb. 12, 5:44 p.m.

VOL. XLVI, No. 25

Feb. 12, 1965

Page 4

Moral Considerations in German Statute

In spite of the urgent appeals from
numerous quarters throughout the world.
there is resistance in Bonn to the demands
that the statute of limitations on trying Nazi
criminals should be extended beyond May 8.
Ewald Bucher. West Germany's minister
of justice. ignoring letters from 360 German
and Austrian intellectuals who urged the ex-
tension of the 20-year statute which would
limit or entirely end the trials of Nazi
criminals. strongly rejected the appeals, said
it would not be his govenrment's fault if
"some" Nazis were to benefit from the ex-
piration of the statute, and placed respon-
sibility on the Allies, who, he said "carried
out their silly de-Nazification program, sub-
jecting each unimportant little party mem-
ber to petty questioning instead of prosecut-
ing those really guilty under the penal code."
This was said at a time when there are
reports that the neo-Nazis are expanding
their forces, that the "nationalists" in Ger-
many who are again heiling Hitler are form-
ing new branches in various parts of Ger-
many, and there is a tendency to secure a
forgetfulness that might once again tend to
glorify the criminals.
In view of the new developments. a com-
munication published in the New York Times
is of the utmost importance at this time.
Morris A m chan, of Arlington, Va.,
former Deputy Chief Counsel for War Crimes
at Nuremberg, wrote to the Times:

Arthur J. Olsen, reporting from Bonn in your
Jan. 21 issue that the West German Government
had authorized delivery of modern arms to
Israel which were paid for by the German gov-
ernment, explained that the government con-
siders it "has a moral obligation to contribute to
the security of the Jewish state."
Indeed, this recognition of a moral obliga-
tion, further evidenced by substantial restitu-
tion and indemnity payments initiated by Chan-
cellor Adenauer's government, has in a large
measure contributed to the acceptance of the
West German Government in the community
of nations.
There is a real danger that this favorable
image, so painstakingly created, may be wiped
out by the termination, if the statute of limita-
tions is not extended, of the trials of German
nationals for atrocities committed during the
N azi regime.
The Nuremberg trials established the basis
upon which the German pepple as a whole could
dissociate itself from the collective guilt attribu-
table to the acts of Hitler's Third Reich.
The West German Government, in adopting
a policy of its nationals for such acts of brutality,
convincingly demonstrated to the world that the
German people as a whole ought not to be held
responsible for the acts of identifiable criminals.
This, I venture to suggest, was the principal fac-
tor which contributed to the development of
West Germany n.:;- a democratic power and en-
Aleci it to prosper.
Suppose, then, that the trials terminate be-
cause of the refusal to extend the statute of
limitations applicable to such crimes, what would
be the political effect in Germany and in the
international community? The old-time Nazis,
who because of fear of prosecution for their per-
sonal involvement are in hiding, would now come
out and openly participate in the political and
civil life of the new republic. But such partici-
pation would carry with it the Nazi label, be-
cause the S.S. and party records were captured
intact and are in the possession of the Commu-
nist governments, who will immediately give
full publicity to such past associations.
Imagine what would happen if the fear of
prosecution is removed and Martin Bormann or
S.S. General Heinrich Mueller, Eichmann's boss,
reappears. Because of its own action, the gov-
ernment would find itself powerless to proceed
against them. Even with lesser Nazi figures re-
appearing, the West German Government would
be put on the defensive in an attempt to explain
to a disbelieving world that it is free of Nazi
taint. The new generation of Germans ought to
have this albatross removed from its neck.
On reflection it should be clear that it is in
the best political interests of the German gov-
vernment to extend the statute of limitations

for these Nazi crimes. The legal objections that
I have heard against such extension are not
persuasive. The moral and political considera-
tions to the German people make such legal
objections insignificant.

The New York Times, in the same issue
in which it published this letter, found it
necessary to state editorially under the
heading "Germany's Responsibility":

The decision of the West German Govern-
ment against extending the statute of limitations
for punishment of war criminals is most unfor-
tunate. When the twenty-year statutory period
runs out in May of this year, as it will do under
present interpretation of the law, no further
prosecution of newly apprehended concentra-
tion camp murderers can be initiated. There is
no provision in German law for the extradition
of Nazi criminals to other countries which may
have charges pending.
The German Government's decision was un-
doubtedly based on serious constitutional argu-
ment. The West German Constitution, adopted
in 1949, forbids ex post facto laws. Therefore
German war crimes prosecutions have had to be
conducted under the ordinary criminal code,
which sets the twenty•yea: limit. The expiration
date of May 8. 1965. v-.1s determined by the
date of the final collapse of the Nazi regime
and the end of the European war: May 8, 1945.
But West Germany was not even a state until
1949, and it achieved full sovereignty only in
1955. It took about that long for the shattered
country to reorganize its life and begin to gather
the material and people needed for effective
war crimes prosecutions.
A revision of the base date in calculating
legal immunity for war crimes from 1945 to 1955,,
when the United States, Britain and France
restored the ultimate responsibility of sovereign-
ty, would not do violence to the constitutional
concept. And it would add ten more years to
the few during which the West Germans have
in fact pursued with some vigor the war crimi-
nals among them. No one doubts that there are
many of the most vicious such criminals still
at large, some hiding behind new names and
fabricated life histories in Germany itself, some
in other countries, waiting for the date when
they can claim the rights of law-abiding citizens
with impunity. Few of the main participants in
the Third Reich's brutalities are likely to sur-
vive another decade. Ten more years is not a
long period for Germans to continue to accept
the responsibility to remember, to find and to
punish those who remain.

Israel's Background and Current
Story in Meeker's Israel Reborn'

Oden Meeker is an expert at evaluating life in numerous countries
for young people. He has written a good account of Laos. and his
newest work, "Israel Reborn," published by Scribner's (597 5th, NY 17
offers a splendid travelogue on the new state of Israel.
Meeker's new work enriches the Scribner World Background Series.
It is a sympathetic and understanding description of life in Israel, and
the illustrations and maps assist the young reader in his introduction
to the Israelis, their background, their activities in many areas, their
life as an autonomous people. Many of the author's pictures could, in
themselves, stand as a valuable contribution to literature dealing with
Israel and Israelis.
Meeker's is an all-inclusive document. It begins with the tracing
of Israel's story as having developed as "a new nation from an
ancient people" and proceeds to describe both Jews- and Arabs,

their status in the land and the outlook for the future.

Regarding the Arabs, he points to the coming of a time "when
trained Israeli Arabs will take their place beside their Jewish fellows
in Israel's Afro-Asian aid programs." He declares:
"If the neighboring Arab states can bring themselves to re-cognize
the existence of the State of Israel, and refrain from trying to strike
at it through its Arab citizens, that would do a lot to ease the dilemma
of Israeli Arabs. and help the effort being made by their government
to make them a part of the nation."
The land, the people, the educational aspects, the country's culture
are among the many elements relating to the reborn Israel described
_by Meeker.
The chapter on "American Cousins" is a very friendly evaluation
of a kinship which is summarized as follows: "In many fields, the
curiosity and willingness of the American and the Israeli to learn
from each other is reciprocal."
In a chapter on "The Tourist," the author offers advice that can
well serve as a guide to visitors to the ancient and new-born land.
In his comments on Israel's future, recognizing that "the Israelis
have come home," Meeker asserts that Israel's present course is to
face the perilous past as it builds on the future and adds:
"Now Israel has agreed that it is time for the American overseas
aid people to move on to countries in greater need (though need in
Israel does still exist), and is itself sending surgeons and specialists
in irrigation, construction engineers and poultrymen, experts of all
sorts to the new nations of Asia and Africa; and also to some of the
older ones of the Latin Americas who still must solve a number of
the same problems that Israel as a small, new, pioneering land with
few resources has learned to tackle at home."

These are reasonable sentiments, but
the situation is even worse than has been
pictured. For instance, the Bonn Bundestag
passed a law in 1956 making limitation retro-
active to 1945. This meant that Nazi amnesty
was brought nearer by four and a half years.
It all tended to reduce the guilt, to bring
absolution to entirely too many criminals.
While it has been said that under the
statue of limitations 10,000 Nazi criminals
will go unpunished, Prof. Bedrich Rattinger
of Prague's Charles University Law School
has estimated that 27,000 unpunished Nazi
criminals are hiding in West Germany, Spain
Interest in and respect for the United States Supreme Court will
and South America and that "fascist elements
are already speaking of May 8, 1965, as the be enhanced by the reading of "Mr. Justice Holmes and the Supreme

Frankfurter on Holmes

Day of Resurrection for Nazism."

This is a frightening situation. Pastor D.
Heinrich Grueber of West Germany, who had
testified in Jerusalem against Adolf Eich-
mann, is receiving threatening calls and
abusive letters warning him that after May
8 the anonymous correspondents and callers
"will not stop at anonymous letters and calls;
they will drop their masks." Pastor Grueber
commented: "Today it has become imprudent

to admit having been in concentration camp.
Tomorrow it may be dangerous."

This is a serious warning to humanity_
If Germans will persist in ending the exposes
of the crimes, tomorrow the criminals may
emerge as respectable people with a right
to revive Nazism. Germany must harken to
the voices of all who demand extension of the
statute of lirhitations. And to those who are
indifferent to the emerging thr2..ats the time

has come again to say: BEWARE!

.

Court" by the former Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, pub-
lished as a paperback, in a second edition, by Atheneum (162 E.
38th St., NY 16). And the admiration for Justice
Oliver Wendell Holmes will greatly increase as a
result of this splendid study of the judicial views
of the great jurist.
While this is primarily a work for lawyers
and jurists, laymen will derive a great deal of
benefit from it. Justice Frankfurter reviews Holmes'
attitudes in matters relating to the Federal System,
to Property and Society, to Civil Liberties and the
Individual.
Holmes
Dean Paul A. Freund of the Harvard Law
School, in a preface, pointing out that the book contains Frank,.
furter's lectures at Harvard in 1938, states that the original volume,
by Frankfurter, now out 'of print, "has been well on the way of
becoming a collector's item"; that it helps place Holmes "in the
perspective of the history of ideas."
Frankfurter states in one of the lectures that Holmes believed
that "the Supreme Court must earn reverence through the test of
truth"; that: "no judge of the Supreme Court has done more W
establish it in the consciousness of the people. Mr. Justice Holmes is
built into the structure of our national life and has written himself

into the slender volume of the literature of all time."

