Familiar Whiffs

The ghosts of West Germany's Nazi past have an embarrassing way of cropping up to haunt officials in high places. Often they are gleefully generated, replete with whiffs of Zyklon B gas and the ring of SS jack boots, by East Germany's Communist propagandists, who hold the most comprehensive set of Third Reich records. Frequently the Bonn government ignores the East German charges--and rightly so, for many of them are phony. But now and then, Bonn has been guilty of undue laxity. Not so last week, when two more ghosts loomed up from history. This time Chancellor Ludwig Erhard dispatched them with speed and firmness.

Two months ago, East Germany charged Erhard's Refugee Minister, Hans Kruger, 61, with having served as a "hanging judge" on a special Nazi court in the Polish Corridor town of Chojnice (then Konitz). From 1940 to 1943, said the Communists, some 2,000 Poles were executed in Konitz, with Kriiger pronouncing at least five death sentences for petty infractions of Nazi law. Kriiger, a bespectacled lawyer whose chubby cheeks are badged with dueling scars, admitted Nazi Party membership and service as a police judge in Konitz, but denied he had dealt any death sentences. Nonetheless, Erhard prudently decided to send Kruger on "vacation" while the charges were investigated.

When Erhard returned from Rome last week, a bulging dossier from East Germany was waiting for him. That very night, the Refugee Minister sat down and wrote his letter of resignation. Though he still protested his innocence, Kruger acknowledged that his presence in the Bonn Cabinet was causing "painful embarrassment." Erhard generously offered a few words of praise for Kriiger's performance, but accepted the resignation with alacrity.

No sooner had Erhard disposed of the Kruger affair than another ex-Nazi popped up. Arrested on charges of participating in the mass murder of Jews in southern Russia was West Germany's top bodyguard, U.S.-trained Ewald Peters, who heads the federal government's criminal security police. Peters' job was to protect both West German and visiting statesmen, and he was rated as excellent on both scores. U.S. Secret Service men found him highly effective during President Kennedy's visit to West Germany last summer, and had seen him in action again last month during Erhard's visit to President Johnson's Texas ranch. Just who fingered Peters, the Interior Ministry was not saying, but there may have been more ghosts in the East German dossier than anyone suspected.

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