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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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When I reached Bayreuth late in the evening, I
learned that the city government had refused to issue a permit for the
Congress, not out of any political convictions, but out of fear that foreign
tourists might stay away from the Wagner Festival. The 650 delegates,
therefore, had moved a few miles away to Schwabach, where they were being
protected by a helmeted security force armed with clubs and chains.
By
showing my DVZ press card, I got into the auditorium, where I was soon noticed
by two stalwarts who tailed me closely. As I came in, Adolf von Thadden was
proposing to safeguard democracy in Germany by putting an end to the "Reds" and
to swiftly suppress student riots by replacing the police posted around the
universities with a militia of tax-paying workingmen.
I got to my feet
and strode to the platform, shouting as loudly as I could: "Von Thadden, you
keep talking about democracy all the time. Now let some true democrats have a
say."
The security men leaped on me, but von Thadden stopped them by
shouting into the microphone: "Gentlemen, gentlemen, don't you know how to
treat a lady? I can thank my lucky stars that my cheek is farther away from
that lady's hand than the Chancellor's was."
The audience roared.
After Deutschland Über Alles was fervently chanted, the
demonstration came to an end. Once outside, I found I was unhurt and relieved.
February 27. After Augsburg I went to Waldshut, on the edge of
the Black Forest near Switzerland, a rural region but with an up-to-date look.
Some of the militant radicals were coming to give me some advice about the
elections, such as where my rallies should be held and how I should talk to the
local people.
Was the extreme left going to waste its energy getting a
few votes here while the Social Democrats were in the process of replacing the
Christian Democratic Union with a well planned platform? I explained to them
that I had no intention of shutting myself up in empty rooms, that my campaign
was on a national scale, and that I was going to appear everywhere Kiesinger
held a rally. I was going to harass him in the street in front of his hotel
even if I had nothing but a handful of young people tirelessly shouting
"Sieg hell!" The reporters who followed Kiesinger would repeat and
expand my protest, and thus it would reach all Germans. By
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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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Page 77 |
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