Bonn

Bonn, Apr 2 (Tanjug) - Germany should have refrained from participation in NATO aggression on Yugoslavia not only because it has violated its own constitution and the U.N. Charter by taking part in it but also for being largely responsible for the chaos in the Balkans, former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt has said.

In an interview published in the latest issue of Switzerland's French-language weekly Ebdo, Schmidt, member of the Social Democratic Party, said Germany and its European partners had imprudently allowed the United States to lead them by the nose and to use them for its interests.

Germany is especially responsible for such a state of affairs, he said drawing attention to Germany's contribution to the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia.

A group of 41 lawyers in Hamburg have also pointed to Germany's responsibility in the matter. The lawyers have filed charges against Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Defence Minister Rudolf Scharping with the constitutional court in Karlsruhe.

"The German government has violated its own constitution by participating in the aggression on Yugoslavia," Gerhard Strate, one of the lawyers, said.

The German judiciary, like other state institutions, being in the service of daily politics, the public prosecutor of Karlsruhe has immediately decided not to instigate proceedings against Schroeder and Scharping, explaining with cynicism that the brutal aggression on Yugoslavia was in the service of peace.