One could compare him with Walter Rathenau in the 1920s another wealthy industrialist a German and Jew who became Germany’s Foreign Minister signed

One could compare him with Walter Rathenau in the 1920s, another wealthy industrialist, a “German and Jew” who became Germany’s Foreign Minister, signed the “Rapallo Peace Treaty” in 1922 and was promptly assassinated. The grave of his predecessor Heinz Galinski had been bombed in December last year, and he was probably correct in assuming that the same would happen to his tombstone. His position ensured that he received much hate mail, in recent times no longer anonymous but signed.When in 1992 Ignatz Bubis took over Galinski’s role as the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, he became the best-known Jew in Germany. Most of the German papers this weekend carried the simple headline “Bubis is dead” and this sufficed: everyone knew who and what had been lost.There had been a moment when Bubis was approached to run for the Presidency of Germany.

I am not an Israeli.” Yet his last interview specified that he was to be buried in Israel. IGNATZ BUBIS was the leader of German Jewry; with his death has died much of Germany’s conscience. All the strange contradictions of post-war Germany came together in Bubis. He had survived the camps of the Holocaust in which most of his family had perished, and came back to Germany to affirm his belief that he was “a German citizen of the Jewish faith”.

He wanted to work for reconciliation, but only two weeks before his death stated in an interview in Stern magazine: “I have achieved nothing – or almost nothing.” It was a statement criticised by both Jewish leaders and by German politicians, who expected positive statements from Bubis.
In one of his books, he described himself thus: “I am a European I am a German. Bookshop managers and staff are invariably dedicated and kindly, and the reading public are, without exception, intelligent, discerning, enormously good-looking and generous in their purchasing habits. Why, I have even known people to throw down a Sunday newspaper and say, “I think I’ll go out and buy that book of old Bill’s right now. I might even buy several copies as Christmas presents.”It’s a crazy way to make a living, but it’s one of those things you’ve got to do. I just thank God it hasn’t affected my sincerity.`Notes from a Big Country’ (Doubleday, pounds 16.99).