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Witness History

Why I Slapped the German Chancellor

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.51.6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2018

⏱️ 9 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In November 1968 a young activist hit Germany's leader in public, to draw attention to his Nazi past. The activist was Beate Klarsfeld - the Chancellor was Kurt Georg Kiesinger. Tim Mansel has been listening to Beate Klarsfeld's memories of what happened after she attacked the political leader

Photo: Beate Klarsfeld today. Credit: Tim Mansel

Transcript

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0:00.0

Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless

0:06.8

searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the

0:11.8

telly we share what we've been watching

0:14.0

Cladie Aide.

0:16.0

Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.

0:19.0

Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.

0:21.0

And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less searching

0:25.7

and a lot more watching. Listen on BBC Sounds.

0:29.7

You're listening to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Tim Mansell.

0:35.2

Today I'm taking you back to Berlin in November 1968 and to a German Chancellor about to receive a nasty shock.

0:45.0

I stopped behind him. He was looking in the room.

0:48.0

He had to turn around because I shouted, you know,

0:51.0

and when he turned around, for me it was a moment to slap him.

0:54.4

It was to be a slap with consequences for both victim and perpetrator.

0:59.4

She was Beata Klarsfeld, a woman in her late 20s born in Germany but now resident in France.

1:06.6

He was Kurt Gail Kiesinger, a man in his 60s who'd been Chancellor for the previous two years.

1:13.4

This is very important, I've been me to

1:16.7

to be used to us.

1:17.7

We schmears is.

1:19.8

We were now with the villain, all in my inner gi, the rants, who zetsen. Kiesinger was an elegantly dressed man with carefully styled grey hair who exuded

1:30.8

respectability but many Germans were angry that this man was even eligible for high

1:36.0

office because for 12 years in the 1930s and 40s Kizinger had made a successful career as a Nazi.

...

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