- A German parliamentarian has refused to apologise for
remarks that appeared to compare Jews during the Bolshevik Revolution to
Nazis in World War II.
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- Conservative Martin Hohmann had said many Jews were active
in execution squads during the Russian Revolution.
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- Members of Mr Hohmann's CDU party responded angrily and
Jewish leaders have threatened to take legal action.
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- The Christian Democrats have faced allegations in the
past about members having links to the extreme right.
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- 'Perpetrators'
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- Mr Hohmann's comments, made in a 3 October speech, have
only surfaced now.
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- He compared the killings in Russia's violent 1917 revolution,
which he said were orchestrated by Jews, with the murder of Europe's Jews
during the Holocaust of World War II.
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- According to a transcript of his speech on the website
of his local CDU branch in Neuhof, Mr Hohmann said: "Jews were active
in great numbers in the leadership as well as in the Cheka [Soviet secret
police] firing squads.
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- "Thus one could describe Jews with some justification
as a Taetervolk [a race of perpetrators].
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- "That may sound horrible. But it would follow the
same logic with which one describes the Germans as a race of perpetrators."
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- However, he went on to say: "Neither the Germans
nor the Jews are a race of perpetrators."
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- The speech has since been taken off the site.
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- The BBC's Ray Furlong in Berlin says Mr Hohmann went
further in defending his remarks on national television.
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- He said the MP demanded "justice" for Germans
and that they should not define themselves as the nation who caused Auschwitz.
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- In a brief statement on Friday, without apologising or
directly retracting his comments, Mr Hohmann said: "I describe neither
the Jews nor the Germans as a nation of perpetrators."
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- "It wasn't and isn't my intention to hurt anyone's
feelings."
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- Taboo
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- The head of Germany's Jewish community, Paul Spiegel,
called Mr Hohmann's speech "a reach into the lowest drawer of disgusting
anti-Semitism".
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- He said he had spoken to CDU leader Angela Merkel and
assured reporters "she shared my views".
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- Ms Merkel said Mr Hohmann's words were "completely
unacceptable and intolerable, and we distance ourselves from them absolutely".
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- She has spoken to the lawmaker on the telephone, but
has not said the party will expel him.
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- Our correspondent says any criticism of Jewish people
is still a taboo in Germany, which makes this incident extremely embarrassing
for Mr Hohmann's party.
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- Dieter Wiefelspuetz, a senior parliamentarian for Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats, took a harder line.
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- "There is no place for anti-Semites in the German
parliament," he said.
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- © BBC MMIII
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- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3230223.stm
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