Reagan Vows No ‘Cave-In’ on Grave Visit

President Reagan said today that he will go ahead with plans to lay a wreath at a Germany cemetery where Nazi storm troopers are buried because to do otherwise would make it look as if he had “caved in to unfavorable attention.”

Defending his planned visit to the Bitburg cemetery during his 10-day European trip next month, Reagan said many of the young German soldiers buried there were victims of Nazism “just as surely as the victims of the concentration camps.”

Canceling the visit would “leave me looking as if I had caved in in the face of some unfavorable attention,” Reagan said.

“I think that there’s nothing wrong with visiting that cemetery where those young men are victims of Nazism also, even though they were fighting in the German uniform, drafted into service to carry out the hateful wishes of the Nazis,” he added.

30 SS Graves

During a question-and-answer session with editors and broadcasters invited to a White House luncheon, Reagan acknowledged that about 30 of the graves in the cemetery are those of SS troops, whom he described as “the villains . . . who conducted the persecutions and all.”

“But there’re 2,000 graves there,” Reagan said, “and most of those--the average age is about 18. These are those young teen-agers that were conscripted, forced into military service in the closing days of the Third Reich when they were short of manpower.

“We’re the victor, and they’re there,” the President added, “and it seemed to me that this could be symbolic also of saying . . . this should never happen again.”

The disclosure of Reagan’s plan to visit the Bitburg cemetery, particularly in light of his original decision, since reversed, not to go to a former concentration camp during the trip, sparked an outcry from Jewish and American veterans’ groups. Bitburg served as a staging area for the Battle of Bulge, in which thousands of Americans were killed.

Cause of Pain Seen

Meanwhile, the leader of a U.S. Holocaust group, speaking at a ceremony marking the 40th anniversary of the U.S. liberation of Nazi concentration camps, said today that Reagan will make Jews and other Americans “feel pain and shame” by visiting the military cemetery.

At a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council Chairman Elie Wiesel publicly asked Secretary of State George P. Shultz to “tell those who need to know that our pain is genuine, our outrage is deep and our perplexity is infinite” over Reagan’s cemetery visit.

“Have our policy planners forgotten what SS stands for?” Wiesel asked. “They were the killers of Jews primarily, but not only of Jews. They butchered Poles and Czechs, French and Dutch, Norwegians and Danes, Yugoslavs, Ukrainians, Greeks, Gypsies and homosexuals.

‘Be Our Emissary’

“Why then should our President visit and honor their cemetery as though they had been nothing but patriotic soldiers who died for their fatherland?” he asked.

Wiesel asked Shultz, who sat quietly as the Jewish leader spoke, to “be our emissary” to White House policy makers.