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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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two years old. He diligently related all the facts.
Every time he pronounced the words, "Chancellor Kiesinger," I expected to see
him genuflect.
I learned that Kiesinger's first reaction had been to
minimize the incident. "I don't prosecute women who slap me," he had said. But
his entourage had pressured him into lodging a complaint. He had signed the
papers in the car taking him to the airport for his plane to Bonn.
The
prosecutor called as a witness Commissioner Samtag, who was in charge of the
Chancellor's security during the Congress. He stepped to the bar.
"What
did you see?"
"I noticed the defendant as soon as she came up to the
head table. She was not wearing a delegate's badge, but she had a reporter's
notebook in her hand. A few minutes earlier the Chancellor had been signing
autographs for persons who had come up to him from all over the hail. Since I
had observed the defendant conversing with one of the security men, who let her
pass, I was not alarmed when she slipped behind the row of officials.
"The Chancellor was well protected by six armed bodyguards. One of them
had already drawn his gun, but he could not fire it because the defendant was
shielded by the Chancellor and others."
It would not have taken much
for them to have struck me down. At any rate, in order to slap Kiesinger I had
taken as great a risk as those who in that year of 1968 had done away with
Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Rudi Dutschke.
My lawyer
demanded that Kiesinger be called as a witness since he claimed to have
received "blows and wounds."
"That's just a trick of yours to get the
trial postponed," Judge Drygalla snapped.
Mahler then challenged the
court on the ground that the judge was "partisan."
The court adjourned
for a few minutes. The judge said: "The court denies the request of the counsel
for the defense, which is designed simply to postpone this trial."
The
tribunal upheld the judge's impartiality.
The prosecutor rose: "It must
be taken into consideration that a representative of our nation has been
attacked. Therefore we must proceed to judgment without delay. I demand a
penalty of one year in prison and a warrant for immediate arrest. Otherwise all
this young woman has
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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
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