WORLD : Case of Karajan’s Nazi Past Dropped

WASHINGTON — Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan was under investigation by the Justice Department over allegations of involvement in Nazi persecution, but the case against him was dropped when he died last month, a government lawyer said today.

Had he lived, “there might have been a question of the watch list”--putting the famed musician on a list of people banned from the United States for their Nazi pasts--said Neal M. Sher who heads the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations.

Among the allegations were that Karajan might have worked for the Nazi security police and might have had a role in ridding German orchestras of Jews and other “non-Aryans,” Sher said.