French anti-Nazi fighter Serge Klarsfeld was beaten up and he and his wife Beate were evicted from a neo-Nazi rally in Munich Saturday night. The rally, organized by the “Deutsche Volksunion” (DVU) and attended by an estimated 1000 people, was held in the Burgerbraukeller where Hitler and his followers planned an abortive putsch against the Bavarian State government in 1923.
Guest of honor was the controversial wartime German flying ace and Germany’s most decorated war hero Hans-Ulrich Roedel, a Nazi sympathizer whose presence at a recent army ceremony led to the dismissal of two top German Air Force officers. Klarsfeld stepped onto the podium at the start of the meeting and asked Roedel if he as a Jew and victim of Nazism would be allowed to give his views.
He was pushed off the platform, assaulted and, together with his wife, thrown out. Klarsfeld had a bleeding head wound as a result of the attack. Unconfirmed reports said police made no attempt to investigate or make any arrests.
The rally was held to call for an amnesty for Nazi war criminals still in prison. The focal point of the event was the unveiling of a bust of former SS officer Jochen Peiper who died earlier this year in France when his house was set afire.
The DVU recently tried unsuccessfully to arrange ceremonies in Cologne, Dachau and Mannheim to unveil the bust which carried the inscription “Our heroes live in our hearts.” The work was served by Mannheim police on Nov. 7 but. released last week on the orders of a Mannheim court. Books and records with speeches by Goebbels, Goering and Hitler were on sale at the rally. Outside, three Jewish students dressed in concentration camp clothes carried banners reading “We will never forget Auschwitz.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
