Wiesenthal Center Slams Election of Right-Wing Extremist Martin Graf as Deputy President of Austrian Parliament

SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTRE - EUROPE
66 rue Laugier - 75017 Paris
Tel. +33-147237637 - Fax: +33-147208401
e-mail: csweurope@gmail.com

Wiesenthal Centre to German Top Economist Hans-Werner Sinn: "Today's Managers Are Not Jewish Scapegoats of 1929 Depression - They Are Reckless Opportunists of Iranian NuclearDesign"

In a letter to the President of the German IFO Institute for Economic Research, Dr Hans-Werner Sinn, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's Director for International Relations, Dr ShimonSamuels, responded to this top economist's interview in today's Berlin paper "Tagesspiegel".

Sinn was quoted as stating, "In every crisis, people look for someone to blame, for scapegoats ... Even in the global economic crisis of 1929, no one wanted to believe in ananonymous system failure. Then it hit Jews in Germany, today it is managers ... German history is with us and it is quite clear. The Nazis grew out of the crisis between 1929 and1931. The Pied Pipers would be ready again today."

Samuels contended that "Sinn's comparison is invidious and, at best, insensitive in its timing. Indeed, as we approach the seventieth anniversary of warnings ignored on the road tocataclysm - pointedly 'Kristallnacht' - we should note the contemporary hatemongers who, once more, libel 'Jewish finance' for the contemporary financial crisis."

The letter continued, "One might argue that, just as the Reich's answer to 1929 was rearmament, Lebensraum and aggression, so today's German management is implicated in a recklessopportunism by violating international measures aimed at containing Iranian aggression."

"Such German corporations are not scapegoats of the crisis. By effectively endorsing Tehran's nuclear design 'to wipe Israel off the map' and in threatening broader Westerninterests, their 'managers' are, in fact, the 'Pied Pipers' leading us all to the abyss," concluded Samuels.

For further information, please contact Shimon Samuels at +33.609.77.01.58