Bonn Hopes Told for Reconciliation With U.S. Jews

West Germany’s ambassador to the United States voiced hopes Tuesday that the bitter controversy over President Reagan’s visit to a German military cemetery at Bitburg will encourage, rather than inhibit, reconciliation between American Jews and his country.

Addressing the board of governors of B’nai B’rith International, Ambassador Guenther van Well acknowledged that “many mistakes” were made when the Bitburg cemetery--where 49 members of Adolf Hitler’s elite Waffen SS combat units are buried--was chosen as the site for Reagan to lay a wreath to World War II victims May 5.

But “we would wish that the troubling, painful discussion of the last few weeks leads American Jews to join us in new, determined efforts to establish closer links,” Van Well told the Jewish cultural organization. As a start, he said, the Bonn government is financing an exchange visit this summer by 30 young American Jews and 30 young Germans.

‘Will Always Remember’

Quoting from a recent speech by West German President Richard von Weizsaecker, he said: “It is not a case of coming to terms with the past. That is not possible. It cannot be subsequently modified or made not to have happened. . . . The Jewish nation remembers and will always remember.

“We seek reconciliation. Precisely for this reason, we must understand that there can be no reconciliation without remembrance. . . . We must erect a memorial to thoughts and feelings in our own hearts.”

The ambassador urged American Jews to follow the example of Israeli leaders, who began rebuilding relations with West Germany after World War II, even before the state of Israel existed. Speaking with reporters after Van Well’s speech, Daniel Thursz, B’nai B’rith executive vice president, conceded that American Jews have resisted reconciliation with Germany.

“If we schedule (B’nai B’rith) trips to Germany, people won’t go,” Thursz said. “I felt the same way when I was in the Army and assigned to Stuttgart in 1952. I never left the base on my own; I never talked to a German.”

Thursz said his own adjustment came 10 years later when “I realized that I had to”--partly because of the understanding he had witnessed in Israel. “American Jews have a long way to go.”

Van Well added his own personal experience to the discussion, recounting the concern of his colleagues and himself at the controversy over the cemetery visit.

“The mayor of Bitburg called me and said: ‘What’s happening in the United States? My dear little town is becoming a center of the Holocaust,’ ” Van Well said.

Van Well emphasized that the site of Reagan’s wreath-laying was decided entirely in Bonn after Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the President discussed it personally. But he said Bitburg was chosen because a U.S. military base is situated there and because German-American relations in the area have been exceptionally good.