§ 94. Mr. Bramallasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Herr Kopf, the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, was a member of the Nazi Party; whether he was in 1939 a guardian of confiscated Polish and Jewish estates in Upper Silesia; and whether any foundation has been found for the accusations made against him by the Polish military mission in Berlin.
Mr. McNeilHerr Kopf was dismissed from office by the Nazi Party in June, 1933, as politically unreliable and there is no evidence that he was ever a member of that Party. In 1939 the firm of estate agents in which he was partner was given the business of registering and managing the estates of Poles who had fled from the town of Königshutte before the German advance. Herr Kopf states that in 1941 he was ordered against his will to take over the position of Head Custodian at Lublinitz and that, despite his protests, his firm was ordered to maintain him there until September, 1942. As the formal application for Herr Kopf's extradition was not received until 30th January and has not yet been examined I am unable to comment on the Polish charges. The Lower Saxony Cabinet have, however, passed a vote of confidence in Kopf and when the charges were debated in the Landtag on 28th January all but the Communist delegates endorsed the Cabinet's attitude.