More than half a century after World War II, the German authorities have acknowledged that war disability pensions are still being paid to members of Waffen-SS units and even to war criminals.

But in a statement prompted by criticism from the American Jewish Congress, Friedrich Bohl, the head of Chancellor Helmut Kohl's office, said on Wednesday that the Government and Parliament were seeking ''possible ways to exclude war criminals from drawing war-victim pensions.''

At the same time, he defended Germany's record in paying compensation to Jewish and non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, saying Bonn had paid almost $60 billion to Holocaust survivors.

The German Government first acknowledged that SS veterans were on the pension rolls early this year. The current controversy was set off by American newspaper advertisements on Wednesday in which the American Jewish Congress criticized Germany for showing more sympathy toward war criminals than toward their victims in Eastern and Central Europe.