I sent some of the comments from this list under this heading to Norman Finkelstein, and he replied as follows:
"It's hard to make out how I whitewash the German ruling classes. I make three - in fact, uncontroversial - claims in my book:
(1) Germany has paid out more that $50 billion dollars in compensation to date. In this respect, its record is better than any other country I'm familiar with - certainly better than the US record on compensation;
(2) The Jewish organizations have made claims on compensation based on wildly inflated figures for ex-concentration camp inmates still alive. Indeed, these figures verge on Holocaust denial;
(3) Most of the monies collected by these Jewish organizations will never reach the actual survivors, but will fill the coffers of the organizations.
"I take no position on how much survivors SHOULD receive. Plainly, that is a separate - and probably unanswerable - question."
--CGE