Iraq Sought Nazi Expertise, Arms Expert Says

East Germany helped Iraq develop chemical weapons and was told that Baghdad hoped to destroy Israel by drawing on Nazi experience in gassing Jews, news reports said today.

Until now, attention has focused on the support given by West German companies to Saddam Hussein’s internationally condemned weapons program. The latest reports, however, point the finger at the defunct East German regime, which allegedly became involved to earn hard currency.

“From 1980 until 1987, East German experts built a chemical testing range near Baghdad,” the German news agency ADN said. It said the East German involvement involved passing on “experience with chemical weapons.”

ADN quoted a chemical weapons expert from Leipzig, Karlheinz Lohs, as saying he attended an official meeting of Iraq’s military leadership in Baghdad in 1972, when Saddam Hussein was the No. 2 official in the regime.

“After my presentation, a general got up and said we Germans had so much experience in the gassing of Jews. He wanted my opinion on how they could use this experience for the destruction of Israel,” Lohs was quoted as saying.

The Leipzig professor said he reported the incident to his superiors, but the Foreign Ministry in East Berlin did not react, ADN reported.

Germany’s Bild newspaper also quoted former East German Maj. Gen. Heinz Nagler as saying the Iraqis were interested in the experience of the Holocaust.

“Years ago, Iraqi officers used to ask us how things went with the gassing of Jews,” the newspaper quoted Nagler as saying.