Kohl Says Germans Have a Responsibility to Israel

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl told Israeli President Chaim Herzog on Tuesday that the West German people have a special responsibility for the security of Israel.

In remarks at a luncheon for Herzog, Kohl said that responsibility stems from the Nazi-engendered Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews in Europe were killed.

The 12 years of the Nazi regime, the chancellor declared, “is the darkest period in German history.”

“We Germans have to live with the horrible truth that in the years of Nazism, Germans inflicted unspeakable harm on the Jews.”

Sensitive Moment

Kohl’s remarks came at a sensitive moment, since his minister of development aid, Hans Klein, was quoted Sunday as recommending arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Klein said that weapons exports to the Saudis are “on the whole reasonable and should be considered.”

President Herzog met Klein in a scheduled appointment Tuesday morning, and the West German official reportedly apologized for the timing of his remarks, although not for their substance.

Last December, Saudi Arabia invited West German shipyards to bid on a $4-billion contract to build submarines for the country.

While on a visit to the Saudis in 1983, Kohl barred sales of the West German Leopard 2 main battle tank, but he suggested that his government might approve the sale of defensive weapons systems to the Saudis.

West German law prohibits the sale of weapons to areas of international tension, but arms manufacturers here have been pushing the government to permit exports to some Arab nations.

Kohl has said in the past that he was under “very urgent” pressure from the Israeli government not to sell any weapons to Saudi Arabia.

And Kohl’s spokesman, Friedhelm Ost, said Tuesday that weapons sales to the Arabs are currently “not an issue” between the two countries.

First Visit

Herzog, who arrived here Monday for a five-day trip, is the first Israeli chief of state to visit West Germany. On Monday, he visited the site of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, in which 30,000 Jews perished in the last stages of the war.

At lunch Tuesday, the 67-year-old Israeli leader reminded his audience of the speech made two years ago by German President Richard von Weizsaecker, who said, “We must understand that there can be no reconciliation without remembrance.”

In his luncheon remarks, Chancellor Kohl brought up the subject of a Middle East peace conference, a controversial issue in Israel.

Kohl said he supports such a conference and declared that his government wants peace for “all peoples and states of the region.”

This was Kohl’s diplomatic way of saying that the Palestinians must play a role in any Middle East peace settlement--another controversial subject in Israel.

Herzog will travel to the Rhine River city of Worms today to visit the Jewish synagogue and cemetery there.