The Harder They Fall

East German Communists forever accuse West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of harboring former Nazis in his government, but last week, to their acute embarrassment, a prominent ex-Nazi turned up right among East Germany's top twelve Communists.

The man was Professor Dr. Karl Heinz Bartsch, 39, a brilliant agriculturalist who in scarcely more than a decade soared from complete obscurity to a spot in Walter Ulbricht's Cabinet. First gaining prominence with his lectures on animal husbandry at East Berlin's Humboldt University, Bartsch was given a job controlling collective farms, soon was made Deputy Minister of Agriculture. Perhaps he did not tell his colleagues of some of his earlier achievements: a place in the Hitlerjugend at nine, Hitler's Cross of Danzig at 16 (presumably for deeds in Poland), a war career in the notorious SS.

Western intelligence agencies knew all about Bartsch, however. His name had turned up in the cross reference data at the Berlin Documents Center, an archive of old Nazi membership files rescued from the storage heap of a West German papermill after the war. Resisting the temptation to spill the facts on Bartsch, intelligence bided its time. Fortnight ago, the rising Herr Bartsch became agricultural czar, and at this point out to West Berlin newspapers went full dossiers on the new Communist Cabinet Minister.

For two days the East German government ignored the headlines. Then Ulbricht's party control committee met and decided that Bartsch, for causing "serious damage" to the party, would be dismissed from all his party and government functions. He had been in office just 36 hours.

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