Jewish Leader Assails Remarks by West German Party Official

An official of a conservative West German political party remarked Monday that Jews were always quick to appear when there was money around, prompting an immediate protest from one of the country’s Jewish leaders.

Hermann Fellner, home affairs spokesman of the Bavarian Christian Social Union, made the remark in an interview with the Cologne Express on demands that the giant Flick concern compensate Jews and others used as slave laborers during the Nazi era.

“I see neither a legal nor a moral basis for this demand by the Jews. The fact that it comes now (40 years after World War II) . . . creates the impression that Jews are quick to show up when money tinkles in German cash registers,” Fellner was quoted as saying.

West Berlin Jewish leader Heinz Galinski condemned Fellner’s comment as “outspokenly anti-Semitic” in a statement and said Jews throughout Germany are deeply shocked.

Galinski, who demanded an immediate disclaimer from party leader Franz Josef Strauss, the state premier of Bavaria, was quoted as saying he was “reminded of times I thought belonged to the past.”

The party is a sister party of Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democratic Union, the senior partner in the center-right coalition.

$2.4 Million to $3.2 Million

The Central Council of Jews in West Germany has urged Flick to pay $2.4 million to $3.2 million to former wartime slave laborers.

Jewish council chairman Werner Nachmann said the amount claimed would be a trifle for Flick but could help slave-labor victims in the evening of their lives.

Flick, which collaborated with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and benefited from his “Aryanization” plan by acquiring Jewish companies, is said to have used about 40,000 Jews, prisoners-of-war and concentration camp inmates as slaves.

Other major wartime firms, including Krupp and I.G. Farben, paid compensation after being found guilty by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunals of using forced labor.

Nachmann acknowledged there is no legal basis for the claim but described it as a moral duty.

The claim was sent to Flick’s new owners at the Deutsche Bank by the Jewish International Claims Conference. Flick, the largest private conglomerate in the country, was recently sold to the bank for about $2 billion.