Halt Pensions To Ss Officers, Germans Told

The German government should stop paying pensions to former Nazi SS officers and release a list of those getting payments to determine if known war criminals are on the German payroll, the founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said Sunday.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Los Angeles-based Nazi-hunting organization, said he notified German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel a week ago that recent revelations in a war crimes case in Rome have raised questions about German policy toward former war criminals. Hier said he hasn’t received a response.

“We demand that all pensions to SS officers be suspended,” he said. “We want to know who is receiving these pensions.”

In his letter to the German ministry of foreign affairs, Hier asked whether “infamous Nazis” such as Adolph Eichmann and Josef Mengele, both now dead, received government payments.

He said if the German government does not cooperate, the Wiesenthal Center will launch a worldwide campaign against the payment of the pensions, which he said often range around $560 a month and are three times the reparations paid to Holocaust victims.

“This desecrates the memory of Holocaust victims and of the U.S. soldiers who fought to liberate them,” he said.

The German government could not be reached for comment. Nobody answered the phone at the German embassy in Washington.

Hier said not all members of the SS are considered war criminals, but an examination of the pension list would help determine if war criminals are receiving pensions.