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Nazi Loophole Could Become a Noose
By CHARLES BIERBAUER BONN (CDN) — Publicity-surrounding the trial of a Nazi hunter, Beate Klarsfcld, could lead to eventual court action against former Nazis now living free in West Germany. Mrs. Klarsfeld was sentenced this week to two months in prison by a Cologne court for the attempted kidnaping of the onetime Gestapo chief of Paris. A legal loophole has until now allowed Mrs. Klarsfeld's intended kidnap victim, Kurt Lischka, and other Nazis convicted of war crimes in France, Britain or the U. S. to remain free. Under West German law they cannot be extradited to serve their sentences abroad, nor can they be tried for the same crimes in West Germany. However, _West German Chancelor Helmut Schmidt;, : assured French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing during consultations here this week that a long-stalled treaty closing this loophole would be ratified by the end of the year. Lischka could then stand trial in West Germany. Giscard took the risk of violating diplomatic and legal protocol by appealing for leniency during the trial of Mrs. Klarsfeld. The 35-year-old Berlin-born woman caries both West German and French passports. She is the wife of a French Jew whose family died in Nazi concentration camps. In 1971 Mrs. Klarsfeld Mid several others tried to kidnap Lischka on the street in Cologne where he is a businessman. They intended to take him to France where he was sentenced in absentia in 1950 to life imprisonment for sending 100,000 French citizens to concentration camps. The two-week trial was interrupted several times by French survivors of the camps, some dressed in mock prison garb. Their shouts of "Nazi murderer'1 when Lischka himself appeared as a witness led to scuffling with police and forced an adjournment. Mrs. Klarsfeld was given six weeks to appeal her two-month sentence. She turned down Judge Viktor de Somoskeoy's suggestion that she ask for clemency. She said she would appeal, after taking a 3-week kibbutz vacation in Israel with her husband and two children. The prosecution originally asked for a 6-month suspended sentence. De Somoskeoy said he would not give a suspended sentence because he anticipated that Mrs. Klarsfeld would continue her pursuit of former Nazis. The judge said Mrs. Klarsfeld had a right to use publicity, persuasion and conviction but not violence to make her claim for justice. She has not lacked publicity in her campaign. The trial, having drawn Discard's attention, achieved the publicity that prompted Schmidt's promise to push the delayed treaty to ratification. Mrs. Klarsfeld first gained attention in 1968 when she slapped then Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger to draw attention to his one-time membership in the Nazi party. |
