Peter Abetz says Nazi war criminal Great Uncle Otto did some 'positive things'
Otto Abetz shakes hands with Vichy leader Marshal Philippe Petain in 1941. Photo: Roger Viollet
West Australian MP Peter Abetz, brother of Senator Eric Abetz, says his reaction was "mixed" when he first learned his great uncle was a convicted Nazi war criminal.
Otto Abetz was Hitler's ambassador to occupied France and convicted in 1949 of crimes that included deporting French Jews to the death camps.
Speaking on SBS's Insight program (transcript here), Peter Abetz, who was elected to the WA Legislative Assembly in 2008, twice insisted his great uncle had also done "positive things".
"I think it was one of mixed reaction in that he did some really positive things but he also did participate in, you know, the deportation of the Jews which is really, there's no excuse for that whatsoever and yet he also did some very positive things," Abetz said after host Jenny Brockie asked how he felt when he discovered the family's Nazi past.
"I was told that he - when the Americans were advancing on Paris - because he was so passionate about French culture, he actually negotiated with the Americans to, and the Wehrmacht, that the Germans would vacate Paris and not booby trap anything if the Americans gave them I think three or four days to withdraw and the French were incredibly grateful for that because that way Paris wasn't actually destroyed."
Read the full story at smh.com.au
Interesting, thank you PlanB. So many convoluted stories in the pasts of many of us.
My questions: How long are we the descendants as individuals accountable for 'The Sins of Our Fathers'? Or should we be at all?
Should we try to justify/defend these histories or consign them to the past and move on ... to be judged on our own merits or lack of them?