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HARASSING
THE BUNDESTAG |
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The attempted kidnapping of Lischka took place on
March 22, 1971, but it was before my trip to Czechoslovakia that I had become
interested in bringing to justice the German war criminals who had abused
France. The Brandt government was to sign a new legal convention with France
that would place a time limit on the impunity of those criminals.
In
January 1971, S.S.-General Hans Lammerding had died. He was the most notorious
of the Germans who had been convicted in absentia in France and gone
unpunished. Lammerding was responsible for innumerable massacres of civilians
in the Soviet Union, and he had used the same tactics in France in June 1944.
His division – "Das Reich" – left behind it two names that the French
equate with Nazi barbarism: Oradour-sur-Glane and Tulle. Lammerding was made
chief of staff to S.S.-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, who functioned not
only as Minister of the Interior but also as commander in chief of the
territorial army. After 1945, Lammerding was to benefit from an unusual
situation that also benefited a great majority of the German torturers and
assassins who had operated in France. I was enraged that Lammerding had
succeeded in staying out of the reach of justice, and so I tried to learn what
had prevented and was still preventing the trials of Nazi |
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