|
|
 |
WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
| |
|
| |
 |
Back |
 |
Contents |
Page 105 |
|
Home
Page |
Forward |
 |
| |
| |
We gave that telegram priority because it seemed to
magnify Achenbach's personal responsibility for the reprisals. All Achenbach
needed to do to strengthen his position with his government and continue his
candidacy was to deny that he had ordered them. Now, we knew enough about the
workings of the German authorities in Paris during the occupation to realize
that Achenbach would not have sent Berlin a telegram containing a decision he
himself had made; in fact, the telegram merely reported the murder and the
envisaged reprisals, but not who had ordered them. If Achenbach were now to say
that he had not ordered them, he would appear to have been the victim of a
cabal.
Fortunately, Achenbach chose to defend himself through sources
that had already been made public. The telegram itself had been published in
1953 in the German Jewish weekly Allgemeine Wochenschrift der Juden in
Deutschland, along with a bitter denunciation of Achenbach. At that time
Achenbach, in a ticklish spot owing to his involvement in the Naumann case,
explained his conduct in an open letter. Instead of saying: "I was merely
making a report," he went so far as to say: "General Heinrich von Stuelpnagel,
the military governor of France, wired Berlin about the deportation of Jews
just to avoid the execution of hostages in reprisal. I sent the telegram to
cover Stuelpnagel." Now Achen. bach repeated this explanation to Der
Spiegel and added: "There had to be a lot of fuss made. As a result,
everything turned out fine" – in other words, everything turned out fine
for the Jews.
Achenbach chose not to mention me or attribute any moral
motive to the campaign. The prominent lawyer who had so glibly explained away
the crimes of I. G. Farben and of the German officials in Occupied Belgium had
kept quiet until that April 12. But why? After my open letter of April 4, he
could have sued me for libel, appealed to an arbitration board of historians,
or asked me to produce my documentation. The real reason Achenbach refused to
plead his own cause was that he kept running up against the most deadly of
accusers: himself.
Achenbach's counterattack was to make the telegram
appear to be an act of resistance on his part. But La Libre Belgigue
pointed out:
Achenbach's insistence on this point does
not prove very much. To justify himself Achenbach, rather than repeating his
1953 explanation, might have furnished proof that the 2,000 Jews in question
had never been arrested or deported.
|
|
| |
| |
| |
WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
|
Back |
Page 105 |
Forward |
|
|
