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In the early hours of 21 February 1949, Savitri Devi was arrested in Cologne, British Occupied Germany, for distributing pro-National Socialist posters and leaflets. She was tried on 5 April 1949 for National Socialist Propaganda, certain opinions being illegal in “liberated” Germany. Found guilty, she was sentenced to three years imprisonment, but was released at the request of the Indian government and deported from Germany on 18 August 1949.

In November of 1978, Savitri Devi was interviewed for ten hours about her life and philosophy at her home in New Delhi. The transcripts of these hard to find interviews have just been published as And Time Rolls On: The Savitri Devi Interviews, edited by R.G. Fowler. The book is available at http://www.etsf.org/savitri/atro.html.

In the following excerpt, from pages 64-67, Savitri tells the story of her trial. The title has been added by the editor, R.G. Fowler.

. . . my trial . . . took place on the 5th of April, ’49. It was an ordinary military tribunal trial, occu­pation trial. The people judging me were military occupation. And there was an attorney general who spoke, and he said that I was twice as guilty as anybody else because of my diplomas, my doctorate, my M.A., my L.Sc., my what not. And because I knew what I was doing. And he showed the ruins of Düssel­dorf. We were in Düsseldorf in Mühlenstraße. And he said, “These ruins were brought about by National Socialists.” I said, “No they weren’t. They were brought about by Allied bombers against National Socialism.” He said, “You keep quiet. You talk when you are told to talk.”

And then they gave me a lawyer. I didn’t want one. I said, “I can defend myself. I don’t want a lawyer.” They gave me one all the same. It was the rule. And the lawyer got a letter from Mr. Mukherji trying to make out that I was not a politi­cal person at all. I was much too simple to be a political per­son. That I liked National Socialism as a philosophy and a religion perhaps, but that really has no political meaning. And the lawyer said, “I’ll use that letter, and by using that letter I can get you off several months.” I said, “I don’t want you to use that letter. Please don’t use it, because it’s not quite accu­rate. It tries to defend me, and I don’t want to be defended. Whatever I have to say, I will say when they give me the right to speak. But I don’t want my actions to be made smaller, less important on any account.” He said, “All right.”

The room was packed, and there two Jews in the first row. And they were grinning, and they were laughing. They were looking quite pleased. At the end, they told me that I could speak for a quarter of an hour or half an hour. So I spoke. And they asked me, “Why did you do this? Why did you stick up these posters?” I said, “I didn’t stick up these posters and distribute these leaflets with the hope that by doing so I would resurrect National Socialism and make it the ruling force in Germany and in this world. Certainly not. That job is much too great for a single individ­ual. It’s the job of the gods. They’ll do it in time, if it’s their sweet pleasure.

“Personally I did it for three reasons. First, I obeyed my conscience. Didn’t you tell the world in Nuremberg that a man has to follow his conscience? Of course, you said the ‘world’ conscience. My conscience is not the world conscience. It’s a private conscience. But I follow that. I don’t know what the ‘world’ conscience is. According to me it doesn’t exist. So I followed my conscience. It told me to do this, and I did it.

“Sec­ond, I wanted to show the German people at the time of hu­miliation and martyrdom that at least there were some indi­viduals on the surface of the Earth who were still for them.

“And third, I wanted to defy not only you, the occupation pow­ers, but all those who were against us. I wanted to show them that drowning a whole continent in fire and phosphorus, killing millions of people-five million civilians were killed in Ger­many alone-was an easy task, and they did it. It was so easy. With ample Jewish money and technique put in service of a cause, that will work. But the difficult task, they couldn’t do and cannot do, this difficult task being to de-Nazify, as they say, one person. Not many, one. And not a man at that. Noth­ing but a woman. And not a German woman at that. But a woman from the other end of the Earth. They cannot do that. They could kill me if they like. They didn’t do it. That’s their affair. But they could. They can’t de-Nazify me. That’s what I want to show. They can neither de-Nazify me nor can they de-Nazify the natural force. The principles of National Socialism, based on cosmic laws, will still be true wherever we are in the universe, on this planet or on other planets, whatever they do.”

And that’s what I wanted to say, that’s all. And I started quoting something from Mein Kampf, and the judge stopped me. The quotation was, “The only thing that should prompt our action is neither the approval nor the reprobation of the people around us, but only our allegiance to the truth in which we believe.”[1] I didn’t say it in whole. I said it partly. And the judge interrupted me and said, “I don’t want to know what your Führer wrote.” I said, “I’m sorry. It’s because he wrote things like that that I’m here. I acted according to his writ­ings.”

Anyhow, when the trial was over he said, “three years rig­orous imprisonment.” I thought to myself, “These people don’t really love their blessed democracy.” Because if I had been caught in the Russian zone it would not be three years rigorous imprisonment, it would have been thirty years in a Siberian camp, and I would be dead by now, long ago. But the Com­munists have a faith. A false one, but a faith. And they can understand people who have a different faith, and they know that any person who has a faith is dangerous, potentially at least, to all those who hate that faith.

These people don’t feel the same. Their first concern is their bread and butter and their enjoyment. Democracy gives them that, all right. Long live democracy. If we came to power tomorrow and gave them the same thing, they’d say, “Heil Hitler!” So many did in Ger­many before the catastrophe. So many did, of that description. And they say the contrary now. Those are the democrats. Those are the Western anti-Communists, and they will be crushed by the Communists, because the Communists have a faith, and they have none. Unless we crush the Communists. We are the only ones. We have seen that in Vietnam. Anyhow, that was long after these happenings.

I went out. I had taken with me my swastika earrings bought in India, great big silhouette earrings in gold. As soon as the sentence was given, and I feared no more-I mean to say, a next trial because of my earrings-I put them on. I stood up. I did the Hitler salute, looking at the people, and I walked off. Some people of the press wanted to interview me, but the au­thorities didn’t allow it.

One thing I can say: the two Jews who were at the front were not laughing any longer. I don’t suppose that I frightened them. I was not such a powerful person. But they felt the spirit. They felt that this can always begin again. As long as there are people who really are given to it, it can begin again. That’s what they seemed to think. They didn’t tell me so. I don’t know what they thought. I can’t read people’s thoughts. But that’s what seemed to me.

I walked off, and I was taken to Werl after that. That was my trial in Düsseldorf, Mühlenstraße, on the 5th of April 1949. Exactly two years after I watched the fire on the flanks of the burning Mt. Hekla in Iceland, exactly two years.

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[1] “But our views and our conduct will not be determined by the appro­bation or disapprobation of our contemporaries, but only by our duty to follow a truth which we have acknowledged.”-Mein Kampf, vol. 2, ch. 2, “The State,” trans. Murphy, 222.

NEW BOOK BY SAVITRI DEVI HERE.