BITBURG: Kin of Hitler Foes : Relatives of Hitler Foes to Join in Bitburg Rites : Son of Officer Who Attempted Assassination Participating in Apparent Bid to Quiet Furor

By TYLER MARSHALL

May 3, 1985 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

BONN — In an apparent last-minute effort to quiet the uproar over President Reagan’s plans to lay a wreath at a German war cemetery next Sunday, relatives of Germans who actively opposed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party are being included in the ceremony.

The announcement came Thursday after a meeting between Reagan and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl shortly before the formal beginning of the seven-nation economic summit here.

West German government spokesman Peter Boenisch said that among those who would attend Sunday’s ceremony will be Col. Berthold von Stauffenberg, son of Claus von Stauffenberg, a German army officer who attempted to assassinate Hitler in July, 1944. Claus von Stauffenberg was executed soon after the abortive assassination attempt.

No Further Details

Boenisch said he had no further details about who would attend the ceremony, indicating that the invitations had only just been extended to family members of former German resistance fighters.

“I will tell you the list of those who accept as soon as I get an overview,” he said.

Neither West German nor U.S. officials would comment on who initially proposed the presence of those symbolizing the small German resistance movement during World War II. It is known that the White House unsuccessfully attempted to persuade prominent Jewish figures, including Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal and Holocaust scholar Elie Wiesel, to accompany Reagan on the trip.

Both West German and senior U.S. officials reaffirmed Reagan’s commitment to lay a wreath at the cemetery, which contains the graves of 49 soldiers from Hitler’s elite Waffen SS combat units among the 3,000 dead from World Wars I and II who are buried there.

The SS, short for Schutzstaffel, or protective unit, administered Hitler’s concentration camps but also fielded combat divisions.

The controversy surrounding Reagan’s visit to the German war cemetery, at the town of Bitburg, about 60 miles southwest of the capital, has overshadowed the summit conference.

German Reaction

While the last-minute inclusion of the resistance figures is unlikely to lessen opposition to Reagan’s cemetery visit, West German officials appeared pleased by the move.

In a telephone interview, Bitburg Mayor Theo Hallet said: “Now all sides of that period of German history will be there. It makes reconciliation that much more possible.”

Hallet said the intensity of the debate about the cemetery visit has brought waves of visitors to his town from throughout Germany. “The cemetery has become a pilgrimage site,” he said.

The grass in the small cemetery has become so trampled that new turf will have to be installed before Reagan’s visit, Hallet said. He added that signs in English and German had been placed at the cemetery asking visitors not to walk on the graves.

Although the mayor had at one point threatened to withdraw the invitation to Reagan if the controversy over the SS soldiers’ graves persisted, he said Thursday that the furor might serve a purpose.

“It’s a catharsis for us and for all who are taking part in the debate,” he said. “I’m confident we will survive it.”

In Munich, a group headed by members of the American Jewish Congress and including relatives of prominent anti-Nazi figures gathered to protest the President’s trip to Bitburg.

Donna Rosenthal of the American Jewish Congress said a group of 50 Americans, including civil rights activist Dick Gregory and feminist Betty Friedan, will lay a wreath today at the Dachau concentration camp memorial, a few miles north of the city.

Rosenthal said the group will include nine survivors of the anti-Nazi resistance group known as the White Rose. She said the observance has been endorsed by the city of Munich and that “hundreds of German students” will also take part in the ceremony.

The group also plans to honor Hans and Sophie Scholl, two Munich University students beheaded in 1943 by the Nazis for distributing dissident literature.

SS Veterans Gather

To the acute embarrassment of the West German government, former members of three SS divisions also began gathering for a reunion Thursday at the Bavarian town of Nesselwang. The SS war veterans refused to talk with reporters, and police were brought in to keep order.

The town’s mayor read a statement in English saying that he has no power to prevent the reunion from taking place.