Beate Klarsfeld – The Nazi Hunter

In July of 1968 a young woman waltked up to the Chancellor of West Germany, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, shouted "Nazi!" and slapped him the face.  In fact, Kiesinger had been a member of the Nazi Party in good standing.  The young woman – Beate Klarsfeld – was sentenced that very evening to one year in prison (later reduced) and Kiesinger received a standing ovation. 

But that was not the last tine we would hear from Beate Klarsfeld.  Far from it!  She and her husband, Serge, single handedly sought out Nazi criminals in hiding and brought them to justice. Her most spectacular coup was finding in Bolivia the "Butcher of Lyon" – Klaus Barbie.  But there were others as well, including former Gestapo chief Kurt Lischka, who ordered the deportation (and subsequent murder) of 76,000 Jews from France.

None of these Nazis would have been brought to justice without the activism of the Klarsfelds. The West German government at the time – as well as most Germans – wanted to "let sleeping dogs lie" and forget this chapter in history had ever happened.  Beate Klarsfeld was hated for her activism, and has lived in France ever since.  Now the left-wing party Die Linke has nominated Beated Klarsfeld for the office of President of the Federal Republic of Germany.  She won't win; it is a foregone conclusion that the consensus candidate Joachim Gauk will win the vote. But Der Freitag writes the following about the choice of Beate Klarsfeld: 

Vor allem aus diesem Grund wäre Klarsfeld als Bundespräsidentin eine gute Wahl: Die Erinnerung an die DDR wird noch lange lebendig bleiben. Aber die Zeitzeugen des Nazi-Regime – Täter, Opfer, Widerstandskämpfer – sterben aus. Bald wird niemand mehr leben, der aus erster Hand aus dem gefährlich dummen, fürchterlichen „Deutschland“ berichten kann, das es einmal gab. In Zeiten, da der braune Terror in Gestalt des „Nationalsozialistischen Untergrunds“ wieder grassiert und kein Mensch weiß, welcher Gesinnung Staatsbeamte in ihren undurchsichtigen Verfassungsschutz-Institutionen anhängen, könnte Beate Klarsfeld für Deutschland sprechen. Aber am 18. März wird es, davon kann man ausgehen, anders kommen.

(The choice of Klarsfeld as president would be good for this reason: memory of the GDR will persist for a long time. But the witnesses to the Nazi regime – criminals, victims, resistance fighters – are dying out. Soon no one will be alive to report from first hand experience about that terrible, stupid, terrifying "Germany" that once existed.  Today, as the brown terror in the form of the "National Socialist Underground" again raises its head and no one knows for sure which side the officials of the state are on, Beate Klarsfeld could speak for Germany.  But we know that the outcome on March 18 will be different.)

The neo-fascist weekly Junge Freiheit hates the choice of Klarsfeld.  The editors are still angry that she never spent time in prison for slapping Kiesinger, who was a stalwart party member and "never did anything bad."  And how dare she go after these good men, who after all, were just doing their duty for the glory of the fatherland.  It reminds me of my landlady in Freiburg who, when the subject of the Holocaust ever came up, always used to say: "It takes two to tango!""

Bonus:  Beate Klarsfeld is not entirely unknown to Americans.  In 1986 a TV movie – The Nazi Hunter – was made with Farrah Fawcett terrific in the role of Beate.