GERMAN PHYSICIAN QUITS PANEL NAZI PAST BROUGHT BOYCOTT THREATS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 24, 1993                   TAG: 9301240074
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MUNICH, GERMANY                                LENGTH: Short
GERMAN PHYSICIAN QUITS PANEL NAZI PAST BROUGHT BOYCOTT THREATS
A prominent German physician said Saturday he is withdrawing as head of the World Medical Association in a growing controversy over his Nazi past.
Dr. Hans Joachim Sewering issued a statement saying he would not assume the job next October as scheduled because the World Jewish Congress had threatened to lead a boycott of the international association.
After 25 years of helping to build up the organization, 20 as treasurer, Sewering said it was "my duty to protect the World Medical Association from serious damage that could have been caused just by the threat made by the World Jewish Congress."
Earlier, in an interview published Saturday in the Munich-based Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily, he cited the threat of being banned from the United States as his reason for relinquishing the post.
The German Medical Association, which had backed Sewering for the job until Friday, said Saturday his decision was not an "admission of guilt" but one made in the interest of the world organization.
Sewering, 76, was to hold the honorary post for one year.
Sewering does not dispute that he was a member of the Nazi party and that he joined an arm of the SS, the Cavalry SS, as a teen-ager.
He has been accused of signing an order in 1943, when he was a doctor at a clinic for the handicapped near Munich, that approved the transfer of a 14-year-old retarded girl to a facility known to be a "euthanasia" center, where she was killed.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB