Germany: Responsibility for Holocaust 'our own'

The German government said on Wednesday that responsibility for the Holocaust lay with the Germans, after Israel's prime minister sparked controversy before a visit to Berlin by saying a Muslim elder had convinced Adolf Hitler to exterminate Jews.

"All Germans know the history of the murderous race mania of the Nazis that led to the break with civilization that was the Holocaust," Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said when asked about Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks.

"This is taught in German schools for good reason, it must never be forgotten. And I see no reason to change our view of history in any way. We know that responsibility for this crime against humanity is German and very much our own."

Hours before leaving for Berlin, Netanyahu referred in a speech to a series of attacks by Muslims against Jews in Palestine during the 1920s that he said were instigated by the then Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini.

"Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews," Netanyahu said in the speech. "And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, 'If you expel them, they'll all come here. So what should I do with them?' he asked. He said, 'Burn them'."

Netanyahu's comments were not supported by scholarly evidence, the US State Department said, as US Secretary of State John Kerry left Washington for talks on ending weeks of Palestinian-Israeli violence.

State Department spokesman John Kirby declined to characterize Netanyahu's comments as potentially inciting, but he said scholarly evidence on the Holocaust did not support the prime minister's view.

"We've seen the press reports of his comments, and if you look at them, they would connote that the scholarly evidence does not support that position," Kirby said.

Kerry was scheduled to meet with Netanyahu in Berlin on Thursday at the outset of a trip aimed at finding ways to end the violence between Israelis and Palestinians, Kirby said.

AP - Reuters - AFP

(China Daily 10/23/2015 page11)