- vor 2 Tagen
Mehr als ein halbes Jahrhundert nach ihrer legendären Ohrfeige gegen den damaligen Bundeskanzler Kurt Georg Kiesinger,
gibt die deutsch-französische Nazijägerin Beate Klarsfeld in diesem exklusiven Interview
und mit selten gesehenem Archivmaterial tiefe Einblicke in ihren jahrzehntelangen Kampf gegen die Verdrängung.
Gemeinsam mit ihrem Mann Serge Klarsfeld, selbst Überlebender der Shoah,
Anwalt und Historiker, ging Beate Klarsfeld seit den 1960er Jahren auf die Suche nach NS-Tätern,
die nach 1945 unbehelligt Karriere machen konnten.
Darunter Kurt Lischka, Herbert Hagen oder Ernst Heinrichsohn.
Letzterer war als einstiger SS-Mann direkt an Deportationen französischer Juden beteiligt gewesen,
konnte aber zwischen 1960 und 1980 problemlos CSU-Bürgermeister einer bayerischen Gemeinde werden.
Auch im Ausland konnten Karrieren fortgesetzt werden.
Wie etwa die von Klaus Barbie, der einstige Folterspezialist der SS mit Beinamen "Der Schlächter von Lyon".
Er und andere lebten als Mitarbeiter vom US-Geheimdienst
und auch unterstützt vom deutschen Außennachrichtendienst im Kampf gegen den Kommunismus in Südamerika.
Das Nazijäger-Ehepaar Klarsfeld weigerte sich, zur Tagesordnung überzugehen.
Sie machte es sich zur Lebensaufgabe, die Verantwortlichen zur Rechenschaft zu ziehen.
Ein zentraler Moment in Beate Klarsfelds Kampf gegen das Vergessen war ihre spektakuläre Ohrfeige gegen Bundeskanzler Kiesinger am 7. November 1968.
Kiesinger, der während der NS-Zeit als Mitglied der NSDAP und im Auswärtigen Amt tätig gewesen war,
stand für sie exemplarisch für die fehlende Aufarbeitung und die Verdrängung der NS-Vergangenheit in der jungen Bundesrepublik.
"Zeugin der Zeit: Beate Klarsfeld - Die Nazijägerin" ist mehr als ein historisches Porträt.
Es ist eine Erinnerung an den Wert des Widerstands gegen Ungerechtigkeit,
eine Hommage an den Mut zur Unbequemlichkeit und ein Aufruf, Verantwortung zu übernehmen - auch wenn die Mehrheit schweigt. (16.11.2025)
gibt die deutsch-französische Nazijägerin Beate Klarsfeld in diesem exklusiven Interview
und mit selten gesehenem Archivmaterial tiefe Einblicke in ihren jahrzehntelangen Kampf gegen die Verdrängung.
Gemeinsam mit ihrem Mann Serge Klarsfeld, selbst Überlebender der Shoah,
Anwalt und Historiker, ging Beate Klarsfeld seit den 1960er Jahren auf die Suche nach NS-Tätern,
die nach 1945 unbehelligt Karriere machen konnten.
Darunter Kurt Lischka, Herbert Hagen oder Ernst Heinrichsohn.
Letzterer war als einstiger SS-Mann direkt an Deportationen französischer Juden beteiligt gewesen,
konnte aber zwischen 1960 und 1980 problemlos CSU-Bürgermeister einer bayerischen Gemeinde werden.
Auch im Ausland konnten Karrieren fortgesetzt werden.
Wie etwa die von Klaus Barbie, der einstige Folterspezialist der SS mit Beinamen "Der Schlächter von Lyon".
Er und andere lebten als Mitarbeiter vom US-Geheimdienst
und auch unterstützt vom deutschen Außennachrichtendienst im Kampf gegen den Kommunismus in Südamerika.
Das Nazijäger-Ehepaar Klarsfeld weigerte sich, zur Tagesordnung überzugehen.
Sie machte es sich zur Lebensaufgabe, die Verantwortlichen zur Rechenschaft zu ziehen.
Ein zentraler Moment in Beate Klarsfelds Kampf gegen das Vergessen war ihre spektakuläre Ohrfeige gegen Bundeskanzler Kiesinger am 7. November 1968.
Kiesinger, der während der NS-Zeit als Mitglied der NSDAP und im Auswärtigen Amt tätig gewesen war,
stand für sie exemplarisch für die fehlende Aufarbeitung und die Verdrängung der NS-Vergangenheit in der jungen Bundesrepublik.
"Zeugin der Zeit: Beate Klarsfeld - Die Nazijägerin" ist mehr als ein historisches Porträt.
Es ist eine Erinnerung an den Wert des Widerstands gegen Ungerechtigkeit,
eine Hommage an den Mut zur Unbequemlichkeit und ein Aufruf, Verantwortung zu übernehmen - auch wenn die Mehrheit schweigt. (16.11.2025)
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00:02To some she is a traitor, to others a heroine: the German-French journalist Beate Klaasfeld.
00:14In 1968, she slapped the then Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger because of his Nazi past.
00:21I believe it was the most important thing I could do in my life. It was a symbolic act.
00:25Here is the young German woman who estranges her Nazi father.
00:34In the 1970s, she moved to South America to force the extradition of Nazi criminals who had gone into hiding.
00:43In Germany, she tries to bring free-living offenders to justice and ends up in prison herself for it.
00:53In Germany, people believe I am a hysterical and fanatical woman, that is, the scandal girl.
00:59But unfortunately, verbal protests are no longer effective today.
01:04And to uncover a scandal, and you will be watching me do this, it is a scandal that Nazi criminals are still alive today.
01:08can still live unpunished in the Federal Republic of Germany.
01:10To uncover this scandal, one must respond with a scandal.
01:20Beate Klaasfeld is a Nazi hunter.
01:31Most Nazi criminals and desk jockeys after the war stayed in Germany, not stuck around and keeping their own names.
01:39I would say I am perhaps a Nazi hunter, but also the historian who has processed all the documents.
01:46Together with her husband, the lawyer and Holocaust survivor Serge Klaasfeld, here in their archive in Paris.
01:58The two meticulously researched each and every one of their Nazi hunts, in a factual and pragmatic manner.
02:06But their inner drive was anger and outrage.
02:09He was the mayor, they had been given honorable jobs, and that's why it was necessary to pay attention to it.
02:17And that's what I mean, a head of government who was a Nazi propagandist, who headed the department between the Foreign Office and the Propaganda Ministry, foreign propaganda,
02:27Radio Office
02:28We knew what was going to happen, that he would become Chancellor, that was outrageous to me.
02:32The slap had, of course, exposed Kiesinger's past.
02:38A past that German post-war society also finally wants to leave behind.
02:43Enough with the shame and guilt. Look ahead. Rebuild.
02:47Many people no longer want to know anything about the atrocities committed by the Nazis. And why should they?
02:52Finally, Germany was considered denazified shortly after the end of the war.
03:01In 1945, part of the Nazi elite stood trial.
03:04He must answer for monstrous acts in the Nuremberg trials of the major war criminals.
03:10For the first time in history, this is about crimes against humanity.
03:21Even after that, the Allies conducted numerous trials and handed down hundreds of death sentences.
03:28But then it's over for now.
03:35In foreign policy, the Cold War dominated. In domestic policy, reconstruction was the focus.
03:41Chancellor Adenauer wanted a stable post-war society.
03:45This also means that Nazi elites will be reintegrated instead of persecuted.
03:57Former officials quickly find their place in the new state apparatus.
04:01The Ministry of Justice is becoming a stronghold of former Nazis.
04:06And ordinary people don't want to hear about it anymore.
04:10We should finally have the courage to forget that.
04:14Here, we should finally give it a rest. They should finally give it a rest with all this nonsense.
04:23So you don't think it's right that the entire Nazi era is being revisited?
04:26No.
04:28Beate Glasfeld grew up amidst the ruins of Berlin in such a societal climate of turning a blind eye.
04:36Born Beate Künzel in 1939, she was six years old when the war ended.
04:46As in most families, Beate's family hardly ever talks about the Nazi era.
04:52Not even from former Jewish neighbors who had suddenly disappeared back then.
04:57We had two or three who returned from immigration.
05:02I believe he was someone who came back from England, where they said he was Jewish.
05:05But generally speaking, that wasn't mentioned. Not at all.
05:09The family home was a very simple family home.
05:13My father worked in the justice system. My mother had no job at all.
05:17When she came to Berlin from Silesia, where she was born, in Wiganstal,
05:22She was even a cleaning lady in a Jewish family.
05:25And so when she married my father, she remained without a profession.
05:28She had sometimes applied for jobs as a cleaning lady, especially after my father's death.
05:34to earn money. But in general, they were a very simple family.
05:37Yes, because I had no idea about the story, and didn't want to know anything about it, I wanted to.
05:42German society should have been made aware of this by 1961 at the latest.
05:47What had happened in the camps. Adolf Eichmann goes on trial in Jerusalem.
05:53Eichmann is the former organizer of the so-called Final Solution,
05:57of whom six million Jews were to fall victim.
06:04Nothing fazes me. I'm driven to the brink of madness.
06:10I must tell you very clearly, if we had fought 10.3 million Jews,
06:18And then I will be satisfied and would say, well, we have defeated an enemy.
06:30The Israeli secret service Mossad tracked Eichmann down in his hideout in Buenos Aires in 1960.
06:37and takes him to Jerusalem.
06:41He faces 15 charges before the Israeli court.
06:45Above all, crimes against humanity and causing the death of millions of Jews.
06:54It is one of the first trials in which the victims are called to the witness stand.
06:59To escape the bayonets, they crowded into the chamber,
07:03which eventually became so full that it was almost impossible to close the doors.
07:07From inside, shouts and prayers could be heard.
07:10SS men came and took the child.
07:13I learned from people that the child was thrown into a crematorium oven.
07:21Then German officers approached them, doused them with gasoline or kerosene, and set them on fire.
07:29A huge field that stretched for kilometers and was scattered across that field.
07:36Human skulls, bones, and tens of thousands of shoes.
07:40Among them were thousands of shoes belonging to small children.
07:50On May 11, 1961, Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death by hanging.
08:13Exactly one year before Adolf Eichmann's death sentence was announced, Beate moved to Paris.
08:20She is 20, wants to see the world, works as an au pair, learns French, and falls in love with him.
08:28young Jewish lawyer Serge Glasfeld.
08:33We even met on the day that Eichmann was taken to Jerusalem by Mossad.
08:38Perhaps that was a sign beforehand.
08:43I went to the Alliance Francaise language school and my husband took the same subway to the university for
08:49Political science.
08:51I lived on Porto St. Clou, Serge a little further away in Boulogne, but we had to take the same metro.
08:57Wet the same subway station.
08:59And then down at the train station, Serge looked at me, and in a flash he started talking to me.
09:06Ah, you must be English. I said, no, no, I'm German.
09:10And before we parted ways, I had given him the phone number of my family, where I was an au pair.
09:15And Serge really did call two days later, yes.
09:18Three months later I met my mother-in-law.
09:21My mother-in-law spoke German very well.
09:23She had studied in Germany, in Berlin and, I believe, in Essen.
09:27And Serge added that his mother was quite outraged; she loves the Germans.
09:31and was quite outraged when the English, after their interests, loved the bombs.
09:37So that was it, and she also told me shortly afterwards, so there was no feeling of hatred or on the contrary, she
09:43She loved me immediately.
09:46That it was the Nazi Germans who invaded France in 1940 during World War II,
09:52Initially, it doesn't play a major role for the young German woman.
09:55Also, that approximately 76,000 Jewish women and men from France were deported to concentration camps and murdered,
10:03Beate only becomes aware of this here in Paris.
10:06Among them was her husband's father, Serge.
10:18He, as a Jew whose father died in Auschwitz, as a historian, and I, as a German, not a Jew,
10:25who, when I still lived in Berlin before I came to Paris in 1960, knew nothing about the Second World War.
10:30My parents' neighbors and, in general, the teachers didn't talk about it.
10:36And back then, yes, I lived in West Berlin in general, they were more against the communists in the East.
10:43As Nazi criminals, yes.
10:45And I don't know, when I came to Paris, I was just lucky enough to meet Serge very quickly.
10:49I met and Serge helped me, so to end the story now.
10:54The history of the Second World War and the Holocaust.
10:57But above all, it is also the personal story of her husband, Serge Glasfeld, who as a five-year-old narrowly escaped deportation to Auschwitz
11:06escapes.
11:08My husband's story is that my father-in-law was arrested in Nice.
11:16And my father-in-law knew perfectly well that something could happen.
11:20And he had prepared himself to protect his family.
11:24He then had a wall unit installed in his apartment on Rue Italie in Nice, a double wall.
11:30And when Brunner and his group broke into the house at night, my father-in-law spoke several languages, he was Romanian, and...
11:40She opened the door and came in.
11:42The family, no, the family moved to the countryside and they then tried to search the apartment, but God
11:48Thank goodness I didn't notice that the wardrobe sounded hollow.
11:51My father-in-law came along and I saw my mother-in-law again at the train station in Nice.
11:55And from there he was subsequently deported to Auschwitz.
12:01Beate Klaasfeld only learned about the extermination camps such as Treblinka, Maidanek or Auschwitz in her adopted home of France.
12:11The mass murder of Jews, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, communists and opponents of the state.
12:23From the medical experiments on children, the torture, the gas chambers and crematoria.
12:36Acts committed on-site in the camps by people, but only through the planning of high-ranking SS officials
12:43were possible at desks.
12:51That Beate and Serge Klaasfeld would later hunt down the Nazi elite once stationed in France,
12:58such as Alois Brunner, Kurt Georg Lischka, Herbert Hagen, Ernst Heinrich's son and the so-called Schlechter of Lyon, Klaus Barbie,
13:16The Nazi hunter couple had no idea in 1963.
13:21The most important thing is love.
13:27Ah, when we got married in 1963, it was a wedding ceremony in the town hall in the 16th arrondissement.
13:34And then he saw our documents and he said, oh yes, you are German, not Jewish, your husband is
13:41Frenchman and Jew.
13:43Back then, these weddings were very, very little known, yes.
13:47And so they have to make something very special out of their marriage.
13:52We did it.
13:54With their fathers' contrasting stories in tow, the couple embarks on a joint mission.
14:01His father died in Auschwitz while my father served in the German Wehrmacht.
14:07My father was not a Nazi, but he was also not an opponent of the Nazi regime.
14:13That was probably also the trigger for me wanting to show my husband that I, as a German, wanted to fulfill my obligations.
14:19And I believe the marriage of a Jew to a German non-Jew was probably also a decisive factor.
14:27In 1964, Beate Glasfeld began working as a foreign language secretary at the newly established Franco-German Youth Office.
14:39She became a mother in 1965.
14:42Sensitized by her husband's story, Beate Glasfeld observes political events in Germany very closely.
14:52In 1966, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, a member of the CDU party, became Chancellor of Germany.
14:59avert harm from him, uphold and defend the Basic Law and the laws of the Federation, conscientiously fulfill my duties, and deliver justice against
15:09I will make everyone practice.
15:11Of course, I followed Kiesinger's election in 1966. And my husband told me, "Beate, you have to do something."
15:19Beate Glasfeld therefore writes critical articles in the newspaper Comba, the former underground paper of the French resistance, to examine Kiesinger's Nazi past.
15:29to denounce publicly.
15:33I published articles when Kiesinger became Chancellor.
15:36Where I said that Kiesinger understood how to create an equally good reputation for himself within the ranks of Braunheim.
15:41as in the Christian Democrats.
15:42And for us, the matter was clear: we absolutely had to try to force Kiesinger to resign. That was our task.
15:50Beate Glasfeld's journalistic activities have serious consequences for her work as a secretary at the Franco-German Youth Office.
15:58She is dismissed from one day to the next.
16:03They said, "Yes, Ms. Glasfeld, if you retract that," but I said, "No, absolutely not, I have to prove now."
16:08What I said, that's what it was. And that was actually the beginning.
16:11Serge, in particular, is now traveling worldwide to archives in search of Kiesinger's Nazi file.
16:20My husband had even been to East Germany; the files from the Propaganda Ministry were there.
16:26I had to wait two days after he was granted permission. He had been in the archives.
16:30So we published brochures, and one book was even signed by Heinrich Böll. But nobody reacted.
16:38The Glasfelds have revealed that Kurt-Georg Kiesinger held a leading position in the Reich Ministry of the Interior during the Nazi era.
16:47There he was considered a liaison abroad to the Reich Ministry of Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels.
16:53And the slogan we raised before us at the beginning of our struggle still stands today in honor and
17:02Flaming letters before us.
17:04Above us the paths, and before us the guide.
17:11One of Kiesinger's tasks was to spread Nazi ideology internationally.
17:20He was responsible for radio propaganda. He knew everything. He had organized trips with the journalists.
17:26He knew everything. He knew what was going on in the camps. He had extensive knowledge.
17:30We published a documentary that proved what he knew.
17:39The APO, the extra-parliamentary movement, is now protesting against Kiesinger.
17:44Beate Klaasfeld, who herself was never a member of the APO, decides on an unconventional protest action.
17:53On April 3, 1968, she managed to infiltrate the German Bundestag in Bonn.
17:59Their plan? To publicly declare the Chancellor a Nazi.
18:06And that's when he gave me the ticket to stand up when he spoke and shout, "Nazi Kiesinger, resign!"
18:12Then, of course, the bodyguard came and held my hand tightly, and I was then taken away.
18:21Klaasfeld's hope that this high-profile action would bring the research findings on Kiesinger's past to the forefront is disappointed.
18:31A serious debate within society also fails to materialize.
18:35Therefore, the couple decides to take the next step in escalating the situation.
18:39And he first said to me, you know, the best thing is to try to do something symbolic, you try Kiesinger
18:44to get upset.
18:46Before the conference in Berlin, I had given a speech at the Technical University, where I announced that I would
18:53Kiesinger is upset.
18:54The grass was still there, and many well-known people, even the students, said, "Beate, we don't believe that."
19:03Did that happen?
19:05On her wedding day, November 7, 1968, the 29-year-old gained access to the CDU party conference.
19:15We knew that the CDU congress was taking place in Berlin, since it was in the west.
19:20And of course, the young people were already against it anyway.
19:23The plan was to hold a large demonstration in front of the Congress Hall.
19:27Of course there were a lot of police; I think police had been deployed from everywhere.
19:32And that was impossible there, so I had to act alone.
19:39I had made contact through a journalist, the photographer from Stern magazine, Rütz.
19:46He gave me a ride in his car; back then the checks weren't like they are today.
19:49He dropped me off, and then I went into the convention hall and I had to see it.
19:54I thought it was all, well, a ground floor, but to get into the hall you had to go from the
20:01Go down the stands from the top.
20:03And which, thank God, was possible back then.
20:07And when I got downstairs, I was also surprised to see that the board table with Kiesling and everyone else was there.
20:14at least three meters wide.
20:15It was therefore impossible to raise your voice from the front.
20:18And then again the fact that I had the journalist's pass, I said my girlfriend was on the other side.
20:24and is waiting for me.
20:25Can you let me through?
20:27Yes, he said, but hurry, that was the point, Kieslinger had to add, but hurry.
20:39This is the photo of the ear trail.
20:41I said yes, I was still standing behind him and then I hoped for him, but it didn't work out.
20:46not the cheek, but more or less the eye.
20:48And he had to get the doctor.
20:50You had to put on sunglasses; that's the brown color of the Nazi party.
20:55I was also lucky enough to be standing behind him, because his bodyguards were sitting in the front rows and
20:59They should have shot me.
21:01And then, of course, I was arrested that very evening and sentenced to a year in prison.
21:12The presiding judge said, "Ms. Klaas, you used force."
21:15I said that it is violence when a Nazi chancellor is imposed on German youth.
21:19This is violence.
21:30For me, the main thing with this series of recordings was precisely to bring Kiesinger's Nazi past to light once again.
21:37is revealed.
21:38And I believe I have also achieved that in the newspapers that are negatively disposed towards me.
21:43Because everyone was talking about it again, everyone was talking about how Kiesinger was a Nazi and that I...
21:49that's why I slapped him.
21:51Kiesinger himself seems to be unaware of any guilt.
21:54The young woman who carried out this attack on me, linked to the magazine Kompat, that's correct.
22:01She occasionally writes articles there that aren't exactly friendly.
22:05But what she's been up to here, and what she's up to elsewhere, she's already done something in the Bundestag.
22:10Noise scene organized.
22:13This is more closely related to those rowdy groups that we have seen in Germany in the last year at our university towns and
22:22have experienced it elsewhere.
22:23She roams around everywhere there, armed with materials sourced from eastern regions.
22:29So we have always said that we are independent and we accept help from those who are important to us, without [unclear]
22:35to engage in their politics, which we had always managed to do.
22:38When we wanted to publish the Kiesinger documentary, we knew perfectly well that all the archives were buried in propaganda garbage.
22:46My husband then gave permission to travel to East Germany, and even said here in France, "I'm going to..."
22:52The GDR, that's the reason.
22:54He was then able to do research and bring back many documents, which we then published.
23:00And then, of course, the common enemy for the GDR and for me was Kiesinger, where they were very, very
23:08It's quite clear they were helpful.
23:09But I never let myself get involved, because as I said, I later had in the 70s in
23:15protests in eastern countries.
23:17This was done in Prague and Warsaw against anti-Semitism, using leaflets.
23:21And it was precisely at these points that I, as a good German, tried to fulfill my moral and historical guilt.
23:30However, not everyone perceives Beate Klaasfeld as a good German.
23:37The Springer press after the slap, those were ugly articles, yes, internet polluter.
23:43But I mean, I accepted that.
23:49We've had scandals, that was always a limit for us, of course.
23:53But at least something can be achieved with the scandal.
23:55At least all of Germany is now talking about the Klaasfelds and Kiesinger's past.
24:21Despite all the criticism, in his home constituency, Waldshut in Baden-Württemberg,
24:27Kiesinger is still being celebrated a year after the slap.
24:32And Beate Klaasfeld?
24:35She is running against the CDU candidate in the same constituency.
24:38For the small left-wing party Action Democratic Progress, or ADF for short.
24:46In 1969, I was nominated as a candidate for the Bundestag elections by a somewhat left-leaning party.
24:54Even on list number 1 in Waldshut, where Kiesinger was a candidate.
24:58And that's when I finally managed to stand up for Willy Brandt.
25:04For me as a German, Willy Brandt is an example.
25:07He is an example for German youth.
25:08He resisted Nazism, unlike Kiesinger,
25:12who had placed all his intelligence at the service of National Socialism.
25:20There wasn't a single Kiesinger campaign event where we didn't appear and Kiesinger, the Nazi, resign.
25:27Even my son sometimes came with me, when he was still little.
25:30And then the teenagers, who then had to throw tomatoes,
25:33Arno also took a tomato that wasn't Kiesinger-friendly.
25:39In 1969, Kiesinger again ran as the CDU's candidate for Chancellor,
25:44But he narrowly loses to the SPD man Willy Brandt.
25:51Brandt, please accept the election.
25:53Yes, Mr. President, I accept the election.
25:56For Beate and Serge Glasfeld, the Nazi hunt is only just beginning.
26:03Their goal is to identify Nazi criminals,
26:06who can live freely and unpunished in Germany or elsewhere,
26:10to bring in court.
26:15We then focused on Dreid, on Lischka, Hagen and Heinrichs.
26:20Lischka, I think I had, we found his name in the phone book.
26:26Kurt Lischka was head of the Security Police and the SD in Paris during the Nazi regime.
26:32And partly responsible for the deportation of over 70,000 Jewish women and men to Auschwitz.
26:39For this, he was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by a military court in France in 1950,
26:47He can still live freely in Germany and, due to a complex legal situation, cannot be extradited to France.
26:57In 1971, Beate Glasfeld wanted to confront Lischka with his past at his home in Cologne.
27:09We first had contact with Lischka, where we were even allowed into several apartments with blades.
27:17His wife opened it; we had signed the documents for him.
27:19He said I had only signed it administratively. He knew nothing about it, yes.
27:29On March 22, 1971, the Glasfelds planned to kidnap Kurt Lischka.
27:36Their idea is that if Germany cannot extradite the convicted Nazi perpetrator to France, they will take it upon themselves to do so.
27:43Hand.
27:44The kidnapping fails.
27:46He works in an office in Cologne, next to the main train station.
27:50And then I knew which roads to take.
27:52And we rented this car in France with friends.
27:57And the car was parked in front of the door.
27:59And when Lischka came out, I made the signal.
28:03But that was impossible.
28:05So he was walking along a path where someone had tried to hit him, which hadn't worked.
28:10He then lost his hat.
28:12As it happened, a police officer in civilian clothes also happened to be there.
28:16So he fell down.
28:18But despite everything, we didn't have the opportunity to pick him up and drag him to the car.
28:24And I called immediately the next day.
28:27I said, you know, there was a group that wanted to kidnap Lischka.
28:30And then I explained who that was.
28:33Because we absolutely want justice.
28:36Although Chancellor Willy Brandt paved the way in 1971 for offenders convicted abroad to be tried again in Germany
28:45can be
28:46The Bundestag is preventing the ratification of this supplementary agreement.
28:55Our primary goal was to put pressure on the Bundestag,
28:59so that this additional agreement, which was signed on February 2nd, will also be ratified.
29:04Because without ratification, the war criminals convicted in France,
29:07War criminals convicted in absentia are not brought before German courts.
29:11And I think one can understand the skepticism we have,
29:15knowing that many members of the Bundestag are implicated in certain aspects of the case.
29:20Because the Bundestag will not approve the supplementary agreement until 4 years later, in 1975,
29:28It is not Lischka who is on trial for the time being, but Beate Glasfeld.
29:33In 1974 she was sentenced to 2 months in prison.
29:38I was in prison twice in Cologne, in Ostendorf, once for 2 weeks, then for 3 weeks, yes.
29:44And every time, this led to demonstrations, even in Israel.
29:47We even had an Israeli lawyer at one point.
29:52And our friends, I had formed a group in Israel, even came from Israel to Cologne and demonstrated.
29:59Former resistance fighters and concentration camp prisoners again demonstrated in front of the Cologne Regional Court in support of Beate Glasfeld as the verdict was announced.
30:07Throughout the entire process, they found it incomprehensible that Ms. Glasfeld had to go to the dock.
30:13But former SS-Obersturmbannführer Kurt Lischka is allowed to roam freely.
30:19We then said that if there is no trial, there will likely be a survivor who wants to seek revenge.
30:26lead.
30:27We never sought revenge. Justice. These were all actions for justice.
30:33In 1978, a British television crew from the BBC managed to film Kurt Lischka. There was no sign of guilt.
30:46Do you feel that you have done anything wrong against the justice system?
30:51No no.
30:52Do you believe you have done your duty? Or what?
30:55Yes, yes.
30:58Mr. Lischka, it is said that you murdered many thousands of Jews. Do you feel no guilt at all?
31:05Definitely not.
31:06Definitely not.
31:08They never felt any remorse, never any empathy for the victims. They were only concerned with making sure we...
31:14now to disturb their peaceful lives.
31:18And the lives of many Nazis who had actually already been convicted were formally protected by the German justice system for a long time.
31:29Among them was Herbert Hagen, Adolf Eichmann's former boss and one of the main people responsible for the deportation of Jews from
31:38France.
31:39Or Ernst Heinrich's son, CSU mayor of the Bavarian town of Bürgstadt from 1960 to 1980.
31:49Just 16 years before assuming his venerable office, he was still directly involved as an SS man in tens of thousands of deportations to the
31:58involved in concentration camps.
32:00He too was sentenced to death in France for this in 1956.
32:06Heinrich's son and others were able to pursue careers in Germany without any problems.
32:11France requested extradition to France. The Germans then cited Article 16, stating they could not extradite her.
32:19So the only option was to try her in Germany.
32:23And that was the supplementary agreement that had to be chosen.
32:29Therefore, Beate and Serge Glasfeld are traveling to the Franconian town of Bürgstadt.
32:33They want to meet Heinrich's son, provoke him, and draw the attention of the press.
32:40Heinrich's son, who knew he was a lawyer. We then called an office, I believe, in Berlin, in Germany.
32:46whether there is a son of Henry.
32:48They gave us the address immediately. And Heinrich's son, we held a large demonstration in front of his office.
32:56It was immediately clear who he was.
33:00Heinrich's son is popular in Bürgstadt. Many residents of Bürgstadt either cannot or will not hear the accusations against their mayor.
33:11Excuse me, do you have an opinion on this whole affair concerning Henry's son?
33:17So, you even want to hear my opinion.
33:21Well, I say he was a human being, he stood by his station as an officer.
33:26I believe there was no other option at the time.
33:30I have known the man for 28 years.
33:33All my knowledge of human nature would be thrown out the window if there were any truth to that.
33:38I don't believe it.
33:40I think Mr. Heinrich's son is perfectly fine.
33:43And since the past, that has absolutely nothing to do with what he does as mayor here.
33:48I was a prisoner for five years, and nobody asked about how long he spent with us.
33:54And who...
33:54Stop with that opinion.
33:57Uh, who's going to break up with whom?
33:59All this Jewish stuff. It has to end sometime.
34:01So, no more prosecution of Nazi crimes?
34:04There has to be an end sometime.
34:07The people here in my community, as I see it now, still stand by me.
34:13And I can only repeat my statement that I have not committed any dishonorable criminal acts and therefore I am also
34:22I don't feel guilty.
34:25Not all residents of Bürgstadt believe in the innocence of their mayor.
34:30This pharmacist, for example.
34:31Because he expresses critical opinions, he receives death threats.
34:35That's correct.
34:37I received a number of calls that were anonymous and contained threatening messages.
34:43One that was very beautiful.
34:46In no time at all, his face is ruined.
34:48Or the dirty pig.
34:50I'll stab you with a hot iron.
34:53But also a whole range of people who simply said, "We'll never come back to your store."
35:00Like Lischka or Hagen, Mayor Heinrich's son can also continue his work in Germany despite the accusations.
35:07But the Glasfelds have achieved one thing.
35:10The community is now discussing moral responsibility.
35:16That political morality must always be higher than what may be criminally relevant.
35:22But we must also consider the moral obligation from the perspective of that time.
35:27And not from today.
35:30The trial, which took almost 40 years to begin.
35:34After years of struggle by the Klaasfeld family, Lischka, Hagen and Heinrich's son were finally put on trial on German soil in 1979.
35:44We had no other option. It took a long time.
35:46The Lischka trial also lasted from 1971 to 1979. Everything takes a long time.
35:50We had to fight for a long time to change German political society.
35:58On the last day of the trial, we had been given a train by the French railway.
36:04And there were thousands of us who travelled from Paris to Cologne.
36:08These were the sons and daughters of the Jewish citizens of Porten from France, who thus supported us.
36:12They were survivors, but also many who had lost their parents.
36:16And who were responsible for the death of their parents? Lischka, Hagen, and Heinrich's son.
36:21They arrived in Cologne from France early in the morning.
36:24Close relatives, sons and daughters of French Jews who were transported to Auschwitz between 1942 and 1944 to be murdered there
36:33to kill.
36:34Of the 80,000, only a few survived.
36:38Only a few of them came to Cologne, where justice is to be served after 35 years.
36:43Is it possible to still administer justice after such a long time? After so many years?
36:50Yes, we'll have to talk about this in a thousand years. Not in ten.
36:57The whole world must always know what it was.
37:03We have official documents. And my father, that's my murderer. And that's my father. The murderer is Kurt.
37:15Lischka.
37:16I have come today to have justice.
37:24Orschwitz, Meidaneck, the French repeated in ever new choruses on their way from the train station to the court.
37:32It's definitely revenge by the employees. We've given a lot of ourselves over years of hard work.
37:37Our aim today is to condemn those who were responsible for the deportation of 80,000 Jews from France.
37:44to Auschwitz.
37:51We were then able to walk across the main road, which was blocked off, so they knew exactly what was going on.
37:56So the first time I think I was somehow involved in a process, there was of course a proclamation process,
38:01But the fact that so many survivors got involved and came to demonstrate and say, we want this punishment.
38:10Lischka, Heinrichssohn and Hagen await their verdict in February 1980.
38:20Serge Klaasfeld is appearing as the lawyer for the co-plaintiffs.
38:27Around 100 reporters were in the courtroom, waiting for the defendants to appear.
38:33About an hour and a half later, Kurt Lischka enters.
38:38Herbert Hagen and Ernst Heinrichssohn entered the courtroom.
38:45The verdict? Kurt Lischka is sentenced to ten years in prison for aiding and abetting murder.
38:54Herbert Hagen receives the maximum sentence of twelve years.
38:59Ernst Heinrichssohn is sentenced to six years in prison and serves only one year of it.
39:06The other two convicted Nazi perpetrators will also be released from prison much earlier.
39:15And yet. Serge and Beate Klaasfeld have achieved their goal.
39:20At least one of their goals.
39:23Their next mission is already in full swing.
39:26Because Nazi criminals are living at large not only in Germany, but also abroad.
39:31In some cases even with support from the US intelligence service, which needs the old Nazis in the fight against communism.
39:43Like the SS man and former Gestapo chief of Lyon, Klaus Barbie.
39:50US military intelligence helps him obtain a new identity in Bolivia as a communist hunter.
39:57Here, the former torture specialist is helping to build up the political police.
40:02In 1966, Barbie was on the payroll of the German Federal Intelligence Service.
40:09The Klaasfelds find Barbie, alias Klaus Altmann, in 1972 in the Bolivian capital La Paz.
40:19A photo comparison proves Barbie's true identity.
40:22But Barbie denies it.
40:26In my opinion, that could be a coincidence.
40:30You know, like with pictures.
40:32Coincidence, a hollow picture.
40:33I saw a picture here.
40:35I can't find it right away.
40:37I'm not Barbie, like I've already said.
40:39I am Klaus Altmann.
40:41In this new photo of Altmann, you can see a small irregularity at the top of his left eyebrow.
40:48This corresponds exactly to the features of the left eyebrow in the 1948 photograph of Klaus Barbie.
41:00And more evidence follows.
41:03Family similarities.
41:07Who was Klaus Barbie's family in Germany?
41:10They were the same children, same year, year of birth, but perhaps not the same name.
41:18In any case, we knew for sure that it was Klaus Barbie.
41:21Barbie and his wife's children have the exact same first name and the same parents.
41:28Yes, that's possible; there are many such coincidences, which I myself am familiar with.
41:36Finally, the hoax is exposed by comparing the fingerprints.
41:40Klaus Altmann is the wanted war criminal.
41:46Klaus Barbie is known as the Butcher of Lyon.
41:50He was the head of the Gestapo in Lyon and one of the most cruel.
41:55Barbie is accused of torturing members of the resistance in his role as a leading SS man.
42:03He allowed children to starve and women to be beaten and raped until they lost consciousness.
42:12Eyewitnesses remember.
42:14People were brutally beaten to death by Barbie and his men.
42:20When we found their bodies, we saw that their faces were completely smashed,
42:25that the marks of the nailed boots could be seen on them.
42:29Three people were locked inside a farmhouse and burned to death.
42:34When we arrived, we spotted a hand reaching out of the basement window.
42:50Barbie is also accused of the deportation of over 40 Jewish children from the town of Isiö to Auschwitz.
43:04They herded the children together and threw them onto the truck like sacks of potatoes.
43:09Barbie was standing 150 meters away from me.
43:11They were all armed to the teeth.
43:14They charged the children.
43:16And Barbie came towards me and shouted, "Go away, go away!"
43:28When confronted with the accusations, Barbie denies everything.
43:31A reporter knows that he speaks fluent French and tries to expose him.
43:36I don't speak that much French.
44:06In 1772, Beate Glasfeld traveled to Bolivia. She wanted to exert international pressure to have Barbie extradited to France.
44:15And she is not traveling alone. The mother of one of Isieu's murdered children is accompanying her.
44:23Her husband was shot by Barbie, her son was deported, and the children from the Isieu orphanage are
44:30deported.
44:31And then we made an appointment, she said, do you want to travel to Bolivia with me, because of the 4,000 meters altitude
44:37It's exhausting.
44:39And she came along, and we then had contact. She had seen the press, she had explained to the press,
44:44what happened to her.
44:46And then on the last day, we chained ourselves to the bench in front of Barbie's office.
45:06Then the police came and, of course, took away our banners. Employees from the Israeli embassy made us new ones.
45:14Chains were removed and they then had to leave the country the next day or the day after.
45:26Barbie will be protected by the US intelligence service and the Bolivian government for another eleven years.
45:32But in 1983, it finally happened. Barbie was arrested and extradited to France.
45:41Music
45:52And then it was symbolic, since he was also responsible for the Montluc Fund, where he created the resistance space.
45:58executed them where the children were.
46:01And then the image that was shown on television, from the plane and then by car to
46:06Montluc Foundation.
46:07So he came from Bolivia to the place where he had committed the crimes.
46:13In 1987, the trial against Klaus Barbie, who was now 74 years old, finally began.
46:21The preparation for the trial took four years and was only possible because of two people, Beate and Serge Klaasfeld, Barbie
46:29They have been hunting for 13 years.
46:31Beate Klaasfeld was showered with flowers by relatives of Barbie's victims just minutes after the transport carrying Barbie arrived.
46:38How do you feel at this moment, Ms. Klaasfeld?
46:41I feel a sense of pride that after all these long years, Klaus Barbie is standing trial here in Lyon today.
46:50must.
46:50Now the work of the court begins.
46:52When Klaus Barbie first stepped into the dock, protected by security glass, in full public view, many wondered...
46:59What kind of man is this who seems to smile so easily, who acts as if all of this doesn't bother him?
47:04nothing.
47:05When the court asked him who he was, he replied, "Klaus Altmann."
47:09The name under which Barbie hides in Latin America.
47:17In the trial against Klaus Barbie, victims also testify as witnesses, such as the former resistance fighter Lise Lisèvre.
47:27This process should show young people that they should not be seduced by slogans that are reviving among us today.
47:33she says.
47:35And lawyer Dumas adds that she receives threatening letters every day, and then she shows me the one from this morning.
47:40Those were the good old days, you bitch.
47:44This photo shows the son of Lise Lisèvre, who was sent to the concentration camp along with her and her husband.
47:50They too were resistance fighters; their son and husband did not return.
47:57I didn't count how many times he tortured me, but I was interrogated 19 days in a row and always
48:03Barbie was there.
48:05Was he a very violent person?
48:09Very violent.
48:12In the evening he came down to the cellar where the prisoners lay on the floor.
48:17He would squat down one face or another with the tip of his boot, and if it looked Jewish, he would kick it.
48:22Boots right in the face.
48:29The word "Jew" came out of his mouth like the hiss of a snake.
48:40He was the one who punched me in the face.
48:44He questioned me.
48:47He had me deported.
48:52Barbie always said he only had dealings with members of the Resistance and the Marquis.
49:05That is, with the enemies of the German army.
49:10I ask, what were the 44 children then?
49:17What were they?
49:20Members of the Resistance, Marquis?
49:23What were they?
49:25They were innocent.
49:33My husband represented a great many co-plaintiffs.
49:36And we also had the book "The Children of Liseu" for every family.
49:41We found a co-plaintiff for the child.
49:43And Serge said in his speech, when he read all the children's names.
49:48The parents had already been deported.
49:52And he said that the end of it was always the same, he didn't come back.
49:57They spent their entire lives hunting the perpetrators.
50:00But those who were truly concerned for the Klaasfelds were always the victims of Nazi crimes.
50:06Serge Klaasfeld's life's work is the collection of almost 5000 photos of deported and murdered children.
50:24At the Holocaust Museum in Paris, the Memorial de la Shoah, they get their faces and names back.
50:34That Klaus Barbie, as someone partly responsible for her death, is finally on trial after many years,
50:41It does not bring the murdered people back to life.
50:43But his conviction in Lyon in July 1987 brought relief to the courtroom.
50:55The court and the majority of the jury sentenced Klaus Barbie to life imprisonment.
51:03The trial has been cancelled.
51:20Klaus Barbie died in Lyon prison in 1991, four years after his conviction.
51:27He showed no remorse until his death.
51:33Their fight was almost always successful.
51:36But the Klaasfelds failed because of one Nazi perpetrator.
51:40One of the most important aspects of Serge Klaasfeld's personal family history.
51:45Alois Brunner.
51:51Alois Brunner was the one who was responsible for the deportation of my father-in-law.
52:00Alois Brunner was Adolf Eichmann's right-hand man.
52:05Between 1943 and 1944, he organized the deportation of 24,000 French Jews.
52:13Among the Jews arrested in Nice is Arno Klaasfeld, Serge's father.
52:21With the help of the German foreign intelligence service, Brunner went into hiding in Syria after the war ended.
52:27The former SS man lived in Damascus from 1954 onwards under the alias Dr. Georg Fischer.
52:38And Beate Klaasfeld plans to travel to Syria to visit Brunner.
52:44Mossad had indeed had contact, but so had the German newspaper Bunte, which had interviewed him, and there were
52:52Photos inside.
52:53And we definitely had his address in Damascus.
52:59Despite requests from Germany, East Germany, France and Austria, the Assad regime refuses all extradition attempts.
53:09We then had the opportunity to demand further training here in France.
53:15Assad arrived in Paris on July 16th.
53:18We had demonstrated once, because he had been received here in France.
53:22I also made the Brunner case public in the GDR.
53:26They had a good relationship with Assad.
53:28And I said, well, we would like to propose him, they kidnap him from Syria, bring him to the GDR.
53:35A trial was held.
53:36And they immediately sent an extradition contract to East Germany afterwards.
53:43But then the Berlin Wall fell, and that was obviously no longer possible.
53:48Because, as is so often the case with their Nazi hunts, a political solution seems a long way off,
53:54Beate Klaasfeld then travelled to Syria herself in 1991.
53:59However, under a false name.
54:02That was the campaign against Adolf Brunner in Syria.
54:08And I had already been deported once.
54:10And for a second trip, I couldn't enter the country with the same passport.
54:16And then a member of our organization gave me her passport.
54:21She was a little older than me, and also born in Germany.
54:24I had to look something like Trudy.
54:28And with Trudy's passport, I then travelled back to Damascus.
54:33I was then arrested, of course in Seele, even spent a few days in prison, but was then deported again.
54:39But at least, I mean, there's always some danger, yes.
54:42Alois Brunner remains unpunished in Syria.
54:46But at least it's something.
54:48In 2001, he was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by a French court.
54:53The date and location of his death remain unclear to this day.
55:00In the Brunner case, Beate and Serge Klaasfeld have to admit their failure.
55:06We had always tried to give our all until the very end.
55:11We didn't make it to some of them.
55:12But at least we went that far with our resources, and we were mostly successful.
55:19A life like something out of an adventure movie.
55:22The life of a woman who was once ridiculed as hysterical, made enemies, and was imprisoned for her actions.
55:34In 2012, her work for the study of Nazi crimes was officially recognized.
55:40She is nominated as the Left Party's candidate for Federal President.
55:46Then in 2015, the Federal Cross of Merit was awarded to the Nazi hunter couple Klaasfeld.
55:53For me as a German, it was about being able to show something, and I think it was worth it.
55:58I mean, I was sentenced to a year in prison for slapping Kiesinger.
56:02Then I was nominated by the Left as president, and even by the Germans after a very long wait.
56:08and here
56:08received the Federal Cross of Merit.
56:14A belated recognition for a life dedicated to the search for truth, a life that was consistently high-risk.
56:23The Klaasfelds repeatedly received death threats and narrowly escaped two attacks.
56:35Back then, at the very beginning, there were a lot of phone calls, yes.
56:41But then, the attacks happened, the first one was a bomb that was delivered to our house, yes.
56:50We were still staying at my mother-in-law's house back then.
56:52It was at least a pound of explosives, and then also small nails to help them open it.
56:58tearing the nails, so completely the person.
57:00It would definitely have been a case where Serge, my mother-in-law, would have died, yes.
57:06Because the lynxes immediately jumped up.
57:09Then a second time, my husband had to take my daughter to school and the car would have been available at that time.
57:17are supposed to explode,
57:19But thankfully it exploded during the night along with all the cars around it; they were then destroyed.
57:24The police therefore never had the opportunity to find out which group it was.
57:29But in any case, they were right-wing extremists.
57:32A large dose of luck, courage and fearlessness characterize the life of Beate Klaasfeld.
57:38Hardly anything seems to have ever truly frightened the Nazi hunter, does it?
57:45I was frightened. I remember when we were chasing Kiesinger in Germany, one of them had a sports car.
57:51And we didn't go with the sports car, the one that went over, I don't know, over 100 kilometers per hour.
57:55or more.
57:56I said, if you don't stop, I'm scared, I want to get out.
58:00We didn't think about the fear, we thought about success and the work, yes.
58:04So, fear should really be put aside in this situation.
58:06But of course, you can be afraid, but you shouldn't show it.
58:36Yes, I don't know.
58:39Yes, I don't know.
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