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The Holocaust History Project.
The Holocaust History Project.

WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
 
 
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the reporters were already reading it. We were expelled, followed by several correspondents who snatched the last few copies out of our hands.

As we were going down the stairs, Günter Diehl was just coming up. Flushed with success, I handed him a copy that he brushed aside.

"Diehl is a Nazi!"

He spun around and for a moment couldn't find words. Then he shouted: "Communists! Bolsheviks!"

Günter Diehl had been one of Kiesinger's closest associates during the war. When he became Chancellor, Kiesinger made Diehl director of information. Diehl was also one of the Nazi experts on psychological warfare and subversive propaganda and, in December 1939, liaison officer between the Foreign Ministry and the "Bureau Concordia" of the Propaganda Ministry. Along with Otto Abetz, who was to be the German ambassador to Occupied France, Diehl set up a propaganda program directed against France over secret French language stations that represented the various French political tendencies. These broadcast, as if absolutely true, information designed to create panic in French communities. In November 1940, Diehl was a radio executive in Brussels, and until March 1943 he held a similar position in Vichy. He finally returned to Germany as an adviser to Struve's legation, which supervised the bands of French fascists that Jacques Doriot directed.

What I did in Bonn made the Germans smile – and think a little. They now knew that French officials were well aware of their Chancellor's work for the Nazis.

Berlin-Hamburg. I remember the ADF rally in Hamburg on September 16 as the largest in the whole campaign. The speakers were unrealistically hopeful and kept talking about getting 8 percent of the vote, but when it came my turn to speak I stated my opinion frankly: "We will not even get 2 percent."

September 20. Karlsruhe. With hundreds of young people, we besieged the Gartenhalle, where Kiesinger was speaking. I could no longer sneak into halls to speak against him, for someone would always recognize me and I would be unceremoniously escorted out.

Ravensburg, Waldshut, Rheinfelden, Esslingen …

September 26. Serge met me with Petia, our cocker spaniel, to be my bodyguard during the hectic final two days before the
    
   
 
WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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