German Town Wins A Round In Fierce Battle For Its Reputation -- Woman Who Writes About Nazi Period Loses In Court Case

PASSAU, Germany - For more than a decade, the Danube town of Passau has tried to defend itself from a one-woman assault on its reputation.

This month, it won its first battle.

A judge ruled that Anna Rosmus, whose books and articles about the Nazi period made her a symbol of Germany's difficult reckoning with its past, had overstepped the bounds of truth in describing a Nazi obstetrician.

Rosmus, 33, was the subject of a 1989 film, "The Nasty Girl." The movie portrays the reactions of hostility and rage among Passau's leading citizens as Rosmus, barely out of her teens, began digging up Nazi links to politicians, priests and other notables.

In previous works, Rosmus has described Passau as a deeply anti-Semitic town that was the home of several Nazi leaders and that wholeheartedly accepted Hitler. She also has documented Passau's now-extinct Jewish community.

Her fourth book, "Wintergreen - Suppressed Murder," due out in Germany at the end of August, describes some of the most horrifying crimes in the Passau area during the war: mass poisoning of children and execution of prisoners of war.

One section claims an obstetrician, Dr. Franz-Maria Clarenz, performed forced abortions on East European slave laborers, sometimes ripping out 7-month-old fetuses and leaving them to die.

Clarenz's widow and four children, two of whom are doctors, sued for a temporary injunction after Rosmus accused Clarenz of the atrocities in several interviews before the book's release.

The survivors say Clarenz was cleared of war crimes by a U.S. military intelligence investigation that ended in 1947 and at a German court hearing in 1949.

Rosmus claims additional U.S. intelligence documents, as well as archives of the Roman Catholic church, are her source.

But Judge Walter Zimmermann ruled the evidence she provided was inadequate to back up her statements. He threatened her with a 500,000-mark ($300,000) fine or six months in prison if she refers to Clarenz in connection to the atrocities again.

The verdict was applauded at Passau City Hall, where archivist Richard Schauffener said Rosmus exaggerated the evils of Passau's Nazi years in her writing.

"We don't want to defend the Nazis or to say it wasn't so bad here, but we think the portrayal of Passau should be correct," he said. "Passau was a normal - that's a horrible word, but it's true - town during the Nazi period."

Because such SS leaders as Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann and Ernst Kaltenbrunner passed through Passau - Hitler lived here briefly as an infant - the town acquired guilt through association, Schauffener said.

Rosmus bitterly contests this.

"Hitler, Himmler and the others didn't give Passau its hatred for democracy and the Jews. They got it here. The Catholic tradition of Passau is unbelievably full of hatred for Jews, and has been for centuries."

Rosmus said she will press ahead with the publication of her book, saying the statements she is accused of were taken out of context, and that the writing in the book does not violate the verdict.