Original blueprints for the Auschwitz death camp were smuggled illegally out of Germany by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seven years ago, it has been claimed.
According to the publisher of German newspaper Bild, Kai Diekmann, the sketches were purchased in 2009, and the paper panned to donate them to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. However, Germany’s federal archives refused permission for them to be taken out of the country.
Diekmann, former chief editor of Bild, told Hebrew-language magazine Tal Alon this week: “I was convinced that they should go to Yad Vashem [in Jerusalem]. I thought they belonged there. [But the Federal Archives and] the German Interior Ministry told us that the documents belong to the German government, since it was the legal successor of the Third Reich.”
Although he was warned he would face legal consequences if he took the blueprints out of Germany, he was determined to get them to Yad Vashem.
“Then I had an idea. I needed someone who could take them across the border without being stopped. That was Netanyahu. We asked him if he’d come to Berlin for a ceremony in which he’d be given the plans, and that’s what happened.”
The event took place on August 27, 2009 and Mr Netanyahu received the documents, describing them as a “true gift”. He said: “These sketches of a death machine are very important documents, which will help us preserve historical truth.”
They were later displayed in an exhibition at Yad Vashem are now part of the museum’s archives.
There is no evidence to suggest that Mr Netanyahu knew the sketches could not leave Germany and Yad Vashem also denies any knowledge of the plan.
“In any case, the German Federal Archives never asked us for the blueprints or claimed that they are German property,” a Yad Vashem spokesman said.