Germany to Pay Israel 250,000,000 Marks Reparations in 1957

The West German reparations payment agreement for the fiscal year of 1957-58, providing 250,000,000 marks for Israel, was signed yesterday by representatives of the Bonn Government and the Israel Reparations Mission. Seventy-five million marks will be applied as payment for British fuel supplies to Israel. Commodities to be provided Israel remain unchanged by the agreement. They include industrial and agricultural equipment.

Timed to coincide with the reparations agreement signing–which affirmed reports that Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had rejected a request from the Eisenhower Administration to suspend reparation payments if the United Nations voted sanctions against Israel–a denunciation of the Chancellor was issued by the Communist East German Foreign Ministry which called the Bonn Government refusal to suspend payments a “gross violation of the interests of the German people.”

The Frankfurter Rundschau, a West German daily, called the East German protest an action which “outdoes everything that has been seen so far in diplomatic duplicity. Even political illiterates should not be asked to swallow this anti-Semitism of Stalinist coloration which postures as a highminded love of peace,” the influential Frankfurt newspaper said.

An expansion in Israel-West German trade was reported in connection with the reparations agreement signing. Israel bought 75,000,000 marks worth of West German goods furing the past fiscal year, outside of reparations purchases. Income from West German imports of Israeli products served to counterbalance the Israeli purchases.