Werner Nachmann
Werner Nachman ( born August 12, 1925 in Karlsruhe, † January 21, 1988 ) was a German businessman and politician ( CDU). From 1969 to 1988 he served as Chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
Career
Nachman was the son of the Karlsruhe businessman Otto Nachman to the world. In 1938, he fled with his family to France and returned as an officer in the French Army in 1945 returned to Germany. He settled back in Karlsruhe, where he built up the company of the family, a scrap metal company again and later took over the line.
From 1961 to 1988 he was chairman of the Jewish community in Karlsruhe and the Upper Council of the Israelites in Baden. In 1962 he was a member of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, in 1965, he was elected to the Board and from 1969 onwards he held the chair. He is considered an important pioneer of rapprochement between official agencies of the Federal Republic and Jewish organizations. For his work Nachman has been honored many times during his lifetime, but sharply criticized from its own ranks, especially in the early seventies, because they appreciated his efforts at reconciliation as a lack of distance towards Germany.
1972 was Nachman of the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games in Munich. In 1986 he was awarded the Theodor Heuss Prize for his contributions to the "Jewish- German reconciliation and the peaceful coexistence of Jews and Christians in the Federal Republic of Germany ".
After his death in 1988 have criticized against Nachman that he had embezzled in the period 1981-1987 approximately DM 33 million in interest income of reparation money from the federal government. The actual whereabouts of the money is still considered largely unexplained, although particular Nachmann successor Heinz Galinski years 's focus on the elucidation of the matter.