HC Deb 03 May 1965 vol 711 cc896-7
8. Mrs. Renée Short

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why the credentials of the new West German ambassador were accepted, in view of his previous political and diplomatic history.

Mr. George Thomson

I would refer the hon. Lady to the reply which my right hon. Friend gave to the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg) on 29th March.

Mrs. Short

Is my hon. Friend aware that this person joined the Nazi Party in 1938 when he was employed at the German Embassy in Washington where he could have sought asylum if he had been opposed to the Nazi ideology? Is he also aware that this man was sufficiently highly placed to be sent to inspect the Warsaw Ghetto in 1941 and that after then he continued to serve Hitler in Switzerland in the German Embassy there where he could have sought political asylum if he was shocked, as he said he was, by what he saw in Warsaw? Is my hon. Friend also aware that he was—

Mr. Speaker

Order. The Minister must answer the biography as far as it has got.

Mr. Thomson

All the relevant facts about Herr Blankenhorn were carefully considered by Her Majesty's Government in accepting his appointment here as the ambassador of the Federal German Republic. It is true, as my hon. Friend says, that Herr Blankenhorn was a member of the Nazi Party in 1938 but this was at a time when it was hardly possible to have any post of responsibility in the German foreign service without becoming at least a nominal member. I think the House will wish to bear in mind, with its customary fair-mindedness, that he was associated later with the anti-Hitler group in Germany.

Sir G. Nicholson

Is it not a fact that all British diplomatists who have known this gentleman have a high opinion of him and regard him as a good friend of this country and of European democracy?