Sippenhaft to You, Rudolf

Even though champagne sales were bubbling higher, especially exports to the U.S. and Japan, no smiles wreathed the face of Otto Henkell Jr., head of Henkell & Co., leading West German champagne house. Otto Henkell was having trouble in the family--Cousin Rudolf again. A West German court ruled that Otto must hire 31-year-old Cousin Rudolf, whose father, Joachim von Ribbentrop, was once a Henkell champagne salesman--and "not our best salesman, either," as Otto often said.

After Joachim von Ribbentrop was hanged as a Nazi war criminal in 1946, his widow Anneliese (nee Henkell) produced a legal compact that Henkell & Co. had been nudged into signing in 1942--when ex-Champagne Salesman von Ribbentrop was at the height of his power as Hitler's Foreign Minister. It stipulated that, if she requested it, son Rudolf would be appointed manager after he had worked for the firm two years.

Otto tried to buy up Anneliese's contract, offering nearly $100,000. She refused. The dispute dragged along. In court last week, Otto pleaded with the judges: "People would feel offended receiving a letter signed by a Ribbentrop."

Not at all, said the judges: to throw out Frau von Ribbentrop's contract on such reasoning would be tantamount to Sippenhaft. Freely translated, Sippenhaft means the arrest or punishment of relatives for offenses done by another of the family--an old practice of Hitler's and Stalin's. The court's order: Otto must hire Cousin Rudolf within two years, make him a partner in another two years. By that time, January 1956, the learned court predicted, Western civilization will no longer be scared away or horrified by the name of Ribbentrop.

Said Otto grimly: Cousin Rudolf "will be put in a job where he can do the least possible harm."

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