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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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fired me. He also wrote theater skits, and hung
around with a bunch of young people from good schools.
For Serge's
benefit we spoke in English. Jens said: "I understand you took movies of my
father. I would certainly like to know what you can say about him. I myself
don't know very much, because there are some things he has never told me."
I then took out our file on Hagen and told him the positions his father
had held. "Look," I said, "these are his words. These are papers he wrote and
signed under the Nazi regime."
Jens began to read. He didn't say a word
as he turned the pages. His shoulders were hunched; he seemed completely
overwhelmed. You could see by looking at him that his father had not told him
the truth. Suddenly he said to us:
"My father was an idealist. He was
misled, but he committed no crimes. He did not kill anyone. My father was such
an anti-militarist that when he was transferred from France to Yugoslavia,
where he was a commanding officer – S.S.-Sturmbannführer – he
did not even carry a gun when he led an attack on the Partisans."
Serge
replied: "I interpret that exactly the opposite. Your father was such a
militarist that he did not carry a gun so that he could show how brave he was
and thus get his men to follow him. Without a gun he was far more effective
than he would have been with: one."
Jens returned to his study of the
papers. It would have been impossible to deny the evidence. At one time he even
wiped away a few tears, which were not due to eyestrain. That record was
pitiless.
THE HAGEN RECORD
Herbert Hagen was born on September
30, 1913. When he was twenty-three years old, in 1936, that brilliant pupil of
Professor Franz Six joined the S.D., the S.S. Security Service, created and
directed by the masterful hand of Reinhard Heydrich.
Six was then head
of the S.D.'s Department II-1, which was concerned with ideological matters and
expressly directed against Jews, Freemasons, and the Church. He suggested to
young Hagen (S.S. No. 124,273, Party No. 4,583,139) that he assume the
direction of Section II-112, the purpose of which was to suppress the Jews.
Hagen agreed. His journalistic skills also helped Six, who was director of the
Institute for the Study of Foreign Cultures. That Institute was supported by
the S.D., and its journal published many
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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
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