BACKGROUND
German Guilt:
Too Little, Too Late
HELEN DAVIS
Foreign Correspondent
T
he visit to Israel in.
January by German
Foreign Minister
Hans Dietrich Genscher
provided a poignant moment
in a week marked by death,
destruction and profound
trauma in the Jewish state.
"I've come here to tell you
that you can count on Ger-
many and the German peo-
ple," said the German min-
ister, clutching his gas
mask.
"The very existence of
Israel is now being
threatened, and for us Ger-
mans the existence of Israel
is identical to our own exis-
tence."
Germany, he said, sup-
ported all states affected by
the Gulf crisis, "but in a spe-
cial way, for historical and
moral reasons, we stand at
the side of Israel."
During the visit, which in-
cluded stops at the sites of
missile devastation in Tel
Aviv, the German delega-
tion handed over a check for
$165 million to provide
emergency humanitarian
aid for Israelis who had been
left homeless by the attacks.
But given the level of
German involvement in
helping Iraq develop and
produce weapons of mass
destruction, the warm
gesture on Mr. Genscher's
part may have been too little,
too late.
Mr. Genscher acknowl-
edged that German firms
had played a key role in
Saddam Hussein's arms
production and he announc-
ed that the German govern-
ment was introducing str-
ingent new measures to
avoid further violations of
its export laws.
"This does not detract
from the burdens we must
. carry because Germans con-
tributed to the destructive
power of Saddam. Hussein."
Israelis could not have
agreed with him more. The
visit, to both Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem, was marked by
demonstrators who recalled
that Germany had once
before provided the gas
which liquidated millions of
Jews.
They also protested the of-
ficial blind eye which the
German government turned
to German commercial in-
volvement in assisting the
Strong feelings behind the smiles: German Foreign Minister Hans Genscher is greeted in Jerusalem by Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
chemical, biological and
nuclear warfare program of
the Iraqi regime.
"Shame, shame, shame for
creating the new Hitler,"
screamed one protestor.
"Achtung!" said a protest
leaflet distributed in
Jerusalem. "Deutsche Gas! "
Israeli Foreign Minister
David Levy took up the
theme when he told Mr.
Genscher that "it is a
nightmare that gas produced
by Germany should now be
threatening the Jewish
state."
It was a tragedy, he said,
that Holocaust survivors
should be forced to wear
masks to protect themselves
from gas made with German
know-how, technology and
equipment.
And he complained about
the "ugliness and hypocrisy
of certain countries" in
Europe which had imposed
an arms embargo on Israel
while continuing to supply
weapons to states which ex-
plicitly advocated Israel's
destruction.
German firms
helped Iraq
become the largest
manufacturer of
chemical weapons
in the world.
Mr. Genscher did indeed
have reason to atone. True, a
number of Western Euro-
pean countries seized the
opportunity to snatch a slice
of the huge Iraqi military
cake, but German firms
gobbled it up by the handful
- and in doing so, transform-
ed just another Middle East
dictator into one of most
dangerous men in the world.
During the eight year
Iran-Iraq war, chemical
bombs were the secret
weapon which Saddam Hus-
sein deployed to avoid
defeat. Between 1983 and
1988, Iraqi chemical
weapons killed or wounded
no less than 50,000 Iranians,
both civilians and soldiers.
And when the war was
over, Saddam coolly turned
these weapons on his own
people whom he suspected of
disloyalty, killing an
estimated 5,000 men, wo-
men and children in the
Kurdish village of Halabja.
Before the start of Opera-
tion Desert Storm, Western
intelligence sources
estimated that Iraq was pro-
ducing chemical weapons at
the rate of 5.000 tons a year
at facilities throughout the
country.
Iraq was then 'regarded as
"the most experienced coun-
try in the world" in the pro-
duction and use of chemical
weapons. The key to its
success in this field was
German industry,
technology and equipment.
Last year, CIA director
William Webster told the
Senate Foreign Relations
Sub-Committee that Iraq
could not have achieved
chemical weapons capability _
without foreign assistance.
"And much of that assis-
tance," he said, "came from
West German companies."
In January, the construc-
tion firm, Walter-Thosti-
Boswau, admitted that it
had built a large nuclear and
chemical-proof bunker for
Saddam Hussein, complete
with conference room,
swimming pool and
chandeliers, at a cost of $70
million.
German scientists, engi-
neers and industrialists also
constructed, equipped and,
in some cases, staffed the_
key chemical weapons
plants near the towns of
Samarra, Akashat and
Falluja.
They helped Iraq to
become not only self-
sufficient but also the
largest manufacturer of
chemical weapons in the
world.
In addition to chemical
weapons, Iraq is also believ-
ed to be well-advanced in its
development and production
of biological weapons — once
again with valuable assis-
tance from Germany.
With the assistance of the
the German company of
Messerschmidt-Bolkow-
Blohm and others, the Iraqis
have been able to increase
the range of the Scud missile
to 600 miles and Israeli
sources are convinced that
the missiles have the ability
to deliver a chemical
payload.
According to a report in
London, the Israeli govern-
ment believes that Iraq em-
barked on a crash program to
create a makeshift chemical
warhead for the Scud, em-
ploying German and Aus-
trian technicians "lured back
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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