After seven hours of intense debate, West Germany's Bundestag last week voted, 253 to 228, to abolish the statute of limitation on murder that would have made it impossible for the Federal Republic to prosecute newly uncovered Nazi war killers after Dec. 31. The vote was a triumph for Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and Justice Minister Hans-Jochen Vogel, who had led the parliamentary fight to lift the 30-year time limit. Said Vogel: "After Auschwitz, there can be no statute of limitation for murder in Germany."
Advocates of keeping the statute had argued that most crimes had been detected or dealt with, and that...
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