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Famous suddenly: Activist meets Chancellor with an NSDAP past - the moment of the whistle
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Carlsen Publishing House
SPIEGEL:
Ms. Klarsfeld, in the graphic novel "Die Nazi-Jäger" about your life on page 15 the onomatopoeic thing is: "Gossip!" - your slap in the face of Chancellor Kiesinger on November 7, 1968, which made you world famous in one fell swoop .
Do you remember the real sound?
Klarsfeld:
Oh, I couldn't concentrate on that.
I only took the opportunity to slap Kiesinger, which was difficult enough at a CDU federal congress.
The slap hit not only his cheek, but also his eye.
That was the moment when I knew: It was a success.
SPIEGEL:
Your satisfaction can be read in the graphic novel: "After many unsuccessful attempts, I finally managed to carry out this symbolic action today." Why was it so important for you to slap Kurt Georg Kiesinger?
Klarsfeld:
The important thing was that the press not only reported about this scandal, but also about my real concern: A young woman slapped the Chancellor because of his Nazi past.
It was not an act of violence for me, even if a judge sentenced me to one year in prison for it that same day.
I told him: violence is when you force a Nazi chancellor on young people.
SPIEGEL:
Corona crisis, Afghanistan debacle, a slow federal election campaign: In the past few months, have you felt the need to wake someone up again with a slap in the face?
Klarsfeld:
No, that was unique and cannot be repeated.
I never thought of it.
Otherwise this action would not have remained so symbolic.
SPIEGEL:
The graphic novel is based on your book “Memories”, which appeared in 2015 - why this new form of representation?
Klarsfeld:
It is addressing a different audience, the younger generation may be more likely to read a book of pictures.
Serge and I accepted as soon as we were approached by the authors.
Of course we checked everything for historical accuracy, but there were no errors.
SPIEGEL:
However, some things are left out.
For example, that you received information about Kiesinger from the GDR and received 2,000 marks after the slap, allegedly as a fee for an article in the GDR press.
Shouldn't that have been an issue too?
Klarsfeld:
The Springer press accused me of that years ago, and I always said: I was independent, didn't belong to any party.
I accepted the help that could help us.
By the way, that's what you have to ask the authors.
For the graphic novel, of course, you had to change the chronology and take things out.
We just checked to see if something was wrong.
But I think all the important points are there.
SPIEGEL:
Comic stories are always heroic stories as well.
Do you see your husband Serge and yourself as heroes who "fought alone against a corrupt German judiciary," as it is said at one point?
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Pascal Bresson
Beate and Serge Klarsfeld: Die Nazijäger: A graphic novel about the fight against oblivion
Publisher: Carlsen
Number of pages: 208
Translated by: Christiane Bartelsen
Publisher: Carlsen
Number of pages: 208
Translated by: Christiane Bartelsen
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Klarsfeld:
As a hero?
Hm. Serge and I have received many awards, from France and Germany even the Federal Cross of Merit.
Heroes are Hans and Sophie Scholl, who are incredibly important to me.
They had to risk their lives.
Serge and I were lucky to survive two bomb attacks, and my travels in South America in search of war criminal Klaus Barbie were also not without danger.
We escaped death.
SPIEGEL:
“I won't stop at anything!
We have to hit hard with our actions, «reads a speech bubble.
Were you really that uncompromising back then?
Klarsfeld:
Basically I had no other choice.
I was unsuccessful with traditional information in the press about Kiesinger's Nazi past.
SPIEGEL:
You even flirt with the fact that an arrest is not that bad, but rather proof of the depravity of the German judiciary.
Klarsfeld:
Serge and I had taken into account the arrest after the slap in the face from the start.
I was sentenced to prison without parole in Berlin.
However, I was a French citizen and Berlin was under Allied control.
My lawyer therefore requested that I be brought to a French court.
That could cause problems, the presiding judge suspected and called Bonn - after the conversation, the sentence was converted into a suspended sentence.
SPIEGEL:
On a good 200 pages with a large proportion of words, it is about Nazi crimes, sometimes drawn in black and white in flashbacks, and the hunt for Nazi greats who have gone into hiding.
Not too heavy a material for a comic?
Klarsfeld:
The title is called »Nazi Jäger«, that's something interesting, isn't it?
We did that for France at the time, because the Nazi criminals who had Jews deported from France were free and unpunished in Germany.
I think young people still find it important today that war crimes are cleared up and that sometimes you have to choose special actions for this.
We tried to kidnap the war criminals Kurt Lischka in Cologne and Klaus Barbie in Bolivia.
SPIEGEL:
Both failed.
Because of bad planning, say your critics.
Klarsfeld:
In the end, thanks to our research and work, these criminals were on trial.
That's something unbelievable.
SPIEGEL:
In the graphic novel you are characterized as restless: you traveled to South America pregnant, you were threatened, and you were dragged into a car.
Has your life really been that breathless?
Klarsfeld:
Maybe it wasn't as dramatic as in the drawings.
But if you go into this fight like I did, you have to take dangers.
Of course, I had also covered myself.
When I first flew to Bolivia to track down Klaus Barbie, I had told the press beforehand.
It was important to me to be a somewhat known person.
Sure, I could have been thrown in a prison and tortured.
But that would have got through the press and been bad for the government's reputation.
SPIEGEL:
Have you never been afraid?
After all, you had small children, a package bomb was delivered to you ...
Klarsfeld:
... and blown up our car.
Of course we were afraid.
But we didn't want to quit our job and tried to take precautions.
SPIEGEL:
Your role as a mother is also portrayed in the graphic novel.
So you felt guilty because you cooked badly.
Is that correct?
Klarsfeld:
Yes, I'm not a good cook.
But I was mainly concerned because I was often away from home.
Thank goodness we lived with my mother-in-law for a while, who then took care of the children.
Sometimes she said: Serge, for God's sake, don't let your wife travel, she is in danger.
But we always had a wonderful, happy family life; this was the only way we could achieve our goals: Serge as a Jew whose father was murdered in a concentration camp.
And I as a German who tried to get the Germans to remember the past.
more on the subject
Nazi criminal Klaus Barbie: "I came to kill" By Jörg Diehl
SPIEGEL:
Your commitment culminated in the unmasking of the brutal former Gestapo head of Lyon, Klaus Barbie.
The "butcher of Lyon" was brought to trial in France in 1987.
Your greatest triumph?
Klarsfeld:
Definitely.
Tracking him down, making his false identity public, making sure that the proceedings against him that had already been discontinued in Munich were even restarted - these were all successes.
This was particularly good for the victims and their families.
Even if we did not manage to have Barbie expelled from Bolivia, and the plan to kidnap him to Chile also failed.
SPIEGEL:
Critics say you and your husband are exaggerating your role.
In truth, the end of the military dictatorship and the return to democracy in Bolivia led to deportation.
Klarsfeld:
The regime change was definitely important.
That’s exactly what I’m saying.
Our friend Gustavo Salazar was in the opposition in Chile.
He joined the new Bolivian government in 1983 as Vice Minister of the Interior.
He immediately had Barbie arrested and deported by plane to French Guiana.
SPIEGEL:
We need to talk about your nose for a moment.
In the graphic novel, unlike in reality, it is very pointed and always casts a hard shadow ...
Klarsfeld:
The nose, the hair, everything - you can hardly recognize us.
But at the end of the book there is a photo album with pictures of us, there you can see what we look like.
SPIEGEL:
So it's a dramaturgical trick to make you look angrier and more determined?
Klarsfeld:
We are not specialists in this area and we thought that the draftsman would already know how to best attract the readers.
We didn't get upset about it, just checked the book for errors in the content, finished and good.