'Nazi Hunters' Beate & Serge Klarsfeld- New Book, How A Face Slap Brought Justice In Germany

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Last edited Wed May 12, 2021, 08:02 PM - Edit history (3)

- Beate & Serge Klarsfeld were awarded France's prestigious Legion of Honor Medal.

-- 'The Nazi-Hunters': How a slap in the face brought about justice. -- A scandalous act changed the course of history in Germany. A new graphic novel tells the story of "Nazi-hunters" Beate & Serge Klarsfeld in poignant pictures. DW, May 10, 2021. - Ed.



- In 1968, Beate Klarsfeld, then 29 made history by slapping German Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger, a former Nazi Party member.

A new graphic novel called 'Die Nazijäger' (Beate & Serge Klarsfeld. The Nazi-Hunters), by Pascal Bresson & Sylvain Dorange, tells the true story of young German activist Beate Klarsfeld. In the comic, she travels in a car early morning of Nov. 7, 1968 on her way to the conference of the Christian Democrats (CDU) political party — with a very unique mission.. The young German, who had lived in Paris since 1960, sets her sights on German Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger — a former member of the Nazi party who is sitting dead center. After distracting the security guard, she walks briskly along the rows of politicians until she reaches Kiesinger's seat.

Quick as a flash, she turns to the prominent CDU politician, slaps him across the face & shouts loudly, "Nazi, Nazi!!!" Cameramen & photographers from all over the world capture this moment, which makes history.

"I am Beate Klarsfeld & I am married to Serge Klarsfeld," she states, when interrogated by police. "And I am outraged by the injustice that old Nazis get away with in Germany." The graphic novel form is well-suited to tell such a complex story. "My scripts should be like screenplays," said author Pascal Bresson. "This is cinema on paper." Even younger readers can be quickly drawn into the narrative by the filmic images, which also tell Serge Klarsfeld's tragic family history. Serge Klarsfeld's father was deported to Auschwitz by the Nazis & murdered there. As a boy, Serge managed to hide from the Paris Gestapo with his mother & 2 sisters, surviving only by the skin of his teeth. He eventually founded & led the Sons & Daughters of Jewish Deportees from France group which documented cases of Nazi atrocities & located former German & French officials for prosecution.




- Activist Beate Klarsfeld was praised for her action.

Former Nazis at the country's helm:

The slap earned Beate, then 29, jail time — a sentence which was never carried out. "In the end, I was sentenced to 4 months probation," Klarsfeld told DW. "And then when Willy Brandt came to power in 1969, the whole thing was annulled." The courageous action brought the young German worldwide media attention & became a prelude to numerous campaigns against former Nazis holding government offices in West Germany. In 1978, the state premier of Baden-Württemberg, Hans Filbinger, was forced to resign because of his Nazi past.

Chancellor Kiesinger was not the first former Nazi to hold a high government office in West Germany. Adenauer's chancellery chief was Hans Globke, party-loyal administrative lawyer & co-author of the Nazi regime's infamous Nuremberg Race Laws. Kiesinger was a high-ranking member of the Nazi Party, always loyal to Hitler & at the time department head in the Reich Broadcasting Department. After formal denazification, the Allies dismissed him as a fellow traveler. From 1966 to 1969, the conservative CDU politician led the affairs of state as the 3rd chancellor of West Germany in a grand coalition...

Read More,

https://www.dw.com/en/the-nazi-hunters-how-a-slap-in-the-face-brought-about-justice/a-57464177
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- Beate Klarsfeld, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beate_Klarsfeld

- Awards, Beate Klarsfeld:

1974: Beate Klarsfeld received the Israeli "Bravery medal of the Ghetto fighters".
1984: French President François Mitterrand named her a Knight of the Legion of Honour
2007: French President Jacques Chirac named her an Officer of the Legion of Honour
2009: She received the Georg-Elser Prize [de]
2011: President Sarkozy awarded her the National Order of Merit
2013: French President Francois Hollande named her Commander of the Legion of Honour
2015: She and her husband Serge received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, first class.
2016: Beate received honorary Israeli citizenship.
2018: National Jewish Book Award in the Book of the Year category for Hunting the Truth: Memoirs of Beate and Serge Klarsfeld...

- Serge Klarsfeld, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Klarsfeld

.. Later activism: They are notable in the postwar decades for having been involved in hunting and finding German Nazis and French Vichy officials responsible for the worst abuses of the Holocaust, in order to prosecute them for alleged war crimes. Several officials were indicted due in part to the work of the Klarsfelds; they included the following, with the years of their convictions or deaths in parentheses:

Klaus Barbie (1987)
René Bousquet (1993)
Jean Leguay (1989)
Maurice Papon (1998)
Paul Touvier (1994)
In the 1970s the Klarsfelds considered kidnapping Barbie in much the same way the Mossad did Eichmann but the plan fell through. They decided instead to bring international pressure to force his extradition...



- New Book