Former nazi party members as West German diplomats When the West German Fore- ign Ministry was re-established in 1952 almost all the senior posts went to veteran diplomats who had faithfully served Hitler. The members of the older gene- ration have died or been pen- sioned off in subsequent years, but a censiderable- number of men who worked in Ribbentrop’s Foreign Ministry and elsewhere in the nazi state apparatus are still working in the Bonn diplo- matic corps. Here are details of the records and posts held by some of them: Gunther Diehl, at present West _ German ambassador to India. Diehl held the Nazi Party mem- bership card No. 5,518,139. After working in the nazi student mo- vement he received, in 1939, a post in the Radio-Political De- partment of the Foreign Minist- ry. On December 2Ist 1939 he was appointed official liaison of- ficer between the Foreign Min- istry and undercover agency named “Buro Concordia”. This was the cover name for the sec- ret nazi radio propaganda de- partment; most notorious of the Concordia staff was William Joyce, better known as Lord Haw-Haw, who was hanged in London on treason charges in ~ 1946, Felix Gaerte, at present: de- partment head in the West Ger- man Foreign Ministry. Gaerte was Nazi Party member No. 4,910,278. He held -the rank of lieutenant in the SS. During the Second World War he worked first in Himmler’s Reich Security Main Office, and later in the SS main office for racial and reset- tlement questions. Professor Wilhelm Grewe, at present West German ambassa- dor to Japan. Grewe was Nazi Party member No. 3,125,858. During the Second World War he was a university lecturer at the nazi ‘University for Politics” and wrote articles for semi-offi-_ cial publications glorifying naz- ism and opposing the use of the Geneva Convention for allied POWs. Hans Koster, at present sece- tary in the West German Em- bassy to Norway. Koster was Nazi Party member No. 3,501,- 160 and lieutenant in the SS (membership No. 114,214). Franz Krapf, at present West German ambassador to NATO Headquarters in Brussels. Krapf was Nazi Party member No. 3,762,653 and lieutenant in the SS (membership No. 102,283). He worked in the nazi diploma- tic service in Cairo (1939) and Tokyo (1940). Files of the Reich Security Main Office show that he was responsible for intelli- gence liaison in Japan. Geor von Lilienfeld, at pre- sent West German ambassador to Spain. During the war he headed the American section of the Radio-Political Department of the nazi Foreign Ministry res- ponsible for radio propaganda in the’ United States and Canada. In 1943 he received the rank of SS lieutenant and headed the nazi Radio ‘Propaganda Depart- ment in fascist Italy. Dr. Gerhard Moltmann, at pre- sent West German ambassador to Tunesia. Moltmann was Nazi Party member No. 7,005,175 and. worked as legation secretary at the nazi embassy in Berne. Hans Schirmer, at present working in a senior post in the Bonn Foreign Ministry. Schirmer was Nazi Party member No. 3,143,498. As a. post-graduate student he held a top post in the Nazi Party organization in Bri- tain in 1934-35. From 1935 to early 1939 he worked in the nazi Propaganda Office transferred to the Foreign Office. He personally recruited William Joyce as nazi radio speaker. Hanz Schwarzmann, at pre- sent working as West German ambassador to Mexico. Schwarz- mann was Nazi Party member No. 3,151,913. He worked as a and then, The trial a Nuremberg was supposed to rid the world of top nail As this report indicates, many are alive and active in the diplomati services of the Federal German Republic. diplomat in German - occupied Denmark and France. From 1942 he headed the French desk in the Political Department of the nazi Foreign Ministry and was implicated in the deportation of thousands of French Jews. Gustav-Adolf Sonnenhol, at present West German ambassa- dor to Turkey. Sonnenhol joined the Nazi Party two years before Hitler came to power (member- ship No. 545,961). In 1930 he had joined. the Storm Troops and later became a lieutenant in the SS. During the Second World War he served as a liaison of- ficer between the nazi Foreign ~ Ministry and the Reich Securiff x Main Office. He was involved | intelligence , operations again France and Switzerland, and wa deported from . Switzerland } 1945 as an “undesirable alien Herbert von Stackelberg, 4 present West German ambassi dor to: Ethiopia. He joined th Storm Troops two months bé fore Hitler came to power a was Nazi Party member N 2,087,769. During the war I worked in the nazi Ministry 0 Occupied Norway. - —German Democratic Repol Sept. 1975 a The German Democratic Repub- lic has five functioning politica! parties, all with their own news- papers and printing establish- ments — in addition to highly politicized organizations such as the Free German Trade Unions, the Free German Youth, the Democratic Women’s Federation and the Leagw of Culture. The leading party — the Socialist Unity Party — was formed out of the 1946 union of the Communist Party and the Social Democratic — Party. The Democratic Farmers’ Party of Germany, founded in. 1948, elected 52 members to parliament in the November 1971 elections. The accompanying article is a look at the life of the man who is the chairman of the Democratic Farmers’ Party, and is an insight into one kind of background on which united policies of a multi- party socialist state are possible. ae When on April 29, 1948, more than 100 working farmers and farmers’ repre- sentatives from every part of the Meck- lenburg region of the German Demo- cratic Republic met to establish the - Democratic Farmers’ Party of Germany (DBD in German) Ernst Goldenbaum was in the chair. He was there in. his capacity of regional chairman of the Federation of Mutual Farmers’ Aid. Ernst Goldenbaum was elected chair- man of the new party and has been re- turned at all nine DBD party con- gresses since Highlights from Goldenbaum’s poli- tical activity, assembled by Panorama DDR, indicate the basis on which this man from one of the smaller parties, has held a string of important posts in the socialist GDR. Ernst Goldenbaum was born on De- PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 5, 1976—Page 4 cember 15, 1898 in the town of Par- chim in Mecklenburg, the sixth of eight children of a worker’s family. Al- though an excellent pupil he was forced by the conditions of capitalist exploita- _tion to work, after leaving school, as a cowherd and stable-hand. Injured in the First World War, he returned to Schwerin in mid 1918 and, after recovery was sent back to the front. The example of the Kiel Sailors, ' stirred people in Schwerin, too, with the initiative taken by that contingent which was to go to the front. Ernst Goldenbaum tcok an active part in the revolutionary struggles as well as in the January 1919 sailors’ revolt in Schwerin, In‘ his political activities he’ has de- voted especial attention to the alliance between the working. class and the working farmers. Sent to Prison His fellow farmers elected him at the 1924 and 1929 elections to the Mecklenburg regional parliament. There, as well as between 1922 and 1928 as a town councillor of Parchim, — four years deputy chairman of the town diet — he took a firm stand for the interests of workers, farm laborers and working farmers. On account of his struggle against exploitation and reaction — and in his capacity as an editor of the Mecklen- budg ‘“‘Volkswacht” — he was several times in the dock and sent to prison. After the Hitler-fascist had usurped power, Ernst Goldenbaum was once again imprisoned and in 1935 taken to the. Neuengamme concentration camp. He is one of the survivors of the death- ‘ship “Kap Arkona” which the fascists, with a full load of prisoners, scuttled in the Baltic Sea on May 3, 1945. After liberation from. Hitlerite fas- cism, he was the first burgomaster ap- . pointed in Parchim. In Charge of Land Reform When, in September 1945, the Land- Reform Bill was adopted, Ernst Golden- baum took over the function of regio- nal director for the implementation of the democratic land reform in the Land (province) of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern which comprised the largest part of the area to. be allotted in the then Soviet Occupation Zone. After this task had been accomplished, the working farm- ers elected him, in 1947, Regional Chairman of the Federation of Mutual Farmers’ Aid (VdgB) and to the Meck- lenburg Land parliament of which he was a member until 1952. In the first GDR Government he held the. post of Minister for Agriculture and Forestry, 1949-1950. Since 1950 he . has been variously vice-president or de- puty president of the People’s Chamber or a member of the presidium of the Pecple’s Chamber. In addition of the ‘National Front of the GDR, Society for German-Soviet Friendship, Committee of Anti-fascist Resistance Fighters of the“GDR and the GDR Peace Council. Numerous Awards Goldenbaum, now in his 77th year, is honored as an outstanding citizen: - for his .idefatigable struggle against imperialism and war, for socialism and peace; for his outstanding merits in the ~ development and consolidation of the alliance between the werking class and the working farmers; for his activities fcr national construction and strength- ening the socialist GDR; for his stead- _ fast deepening of the fraternal alliance with the Soviet Union and the other countries of the~ccmmunity. of social- ist countries. For these contributions, Ernst Gol- denbaum was awarded the Karl-Marx- Medal, the Badge of Honour of the political freedom in the GDR deserve PHOTO—PANORAMA GD! Ernst Goldenbaum, Chairman of thé Democratic Farmers’ Party. Order for Patriotic Merits in Gold, th? Star of International Friendship # Gold, the Order “Hero of Labor’, thé Medal for his Participation in the Arn ed Struggle of the Working Class 1918 1923, the Medal for Anti-Fascis Fighters, the USSR order of Nation? Friendship, the Memorial Meda] on th? 100th Birthday of V. I. Lenin and oth high state and social distinctions. Th? town of Parchim made him an honor ary citizen. Ernst Goldenbaum is married a” has three children. In his leisure hou! he has remained, to this very day, active sportsman. What does it all mean to Canadians? It means that the cunning propagand? cf the capitalist media aimed at brail™ washing the pecple of Canada abou a final burial.