New evidence points to poisoning of German-Jewish leader

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Published: 14 December 2017

Last updated: 4 March 2024

GERMAN PROSECUTORS are investigating suspicions that Werner Nachmann, a former head of the Germany’s Jewish community who died at 62 in 1988, was poisoned. The possibility of exhuming his remains and doing an autopsy is being looked into with an eye to launching a murder investigation.

The renewed examination of the circumstances of Nachmann’s death, which was attributed to a heart attack at the time, started last summer. It was preceded by an investigative report by Andreas Muller, a reporter at the Stuttgarter Zeitung who found previously unknown documents related to Nachmann’s death, documents that raised suspicions he may have been poisoned.

Nachmann was a senior figure in Jewish affairs in Germany, but his name was sullied after his death when reports emerged suggesting that he had embezzled large sums of money belonging to the community.

FULL STORY Thirty years later, poison suspected behind death of German-Jewish leader (Haaretz)

Photo: Werner Nachmann in 1973 (Gräfingholt, Detlef/Bundesarc)