Folens widow condemns RTÉ's allegations

The widow of the late educational publisher Albert Folens has condemned allegations made last night on RTÉ, which claimed her husband was a member of the Gestapo.

Juliette Folens told The Irish Times that Albert Folens had joined the Flemish Legion but was sent home from training because he suffered from ulcers and never fought on the Eastern Front.

She also said that although he worked as a translator for the Germans he was not a member of the Flemish Legion at the time.

Ms Folens was speaking in reaction to last night's RTÉ documentary, Hidden History: Ireland's Nazis, in which it was claimed that Folens, a native of Belgium, was a member of the SS and the Gestapo.

Albert Folens, who died in 2003 aged 86, joined the Flemish Legion, a volunteer brigade that fought on the Eastern Front for the Germans, in 1941.

According to the programme, he served on the Eastern Front, and then joined the Gestapo and worked at their headquarters in Brussels.

His name was said to have appeared on the US army's Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects, Crowcass.

However, according to Ms Folens, he was less than six weeks in training with the legion before he was hospitalised and sent home suffering with severe ulcers. He then got a job as a translator through the legion, but was no longer a member of it.

She said he was never involved with the Gestapo and did not work at Gestapo headquarters in Brussels. "He did not work in that building," she said.

"He worked in a private house on Avenue Louise, taken over by the Germans. I know, he would come home for lunch, I would see him. He translated all the Flemish daily papers and the lady from Berlin, she did all the French."

She said that while training with the legion, he refused to take an oath to Hitler and the oath was subsequently changed to a pledge to the unit's higher officer. She also said that his only motivation in joining the legion was to fight communism.

Ms Folens denied that her husband was interned by the British after the war but said he was tried by a Belgian court for treason and with having "shook the throne of the Belgian king".

"The only thing they could find against him was that he was a volunteer in the Flemish Legion, none of his neighbours would speak against him," she said.

"He was given 10 years, at the time we thought the sentence was light. If there was one thing true about what was said [on the programme] he would have got at least life, or the death sentence."

Asked whether her husband was a member of the Gestapo, she said he never was. She also said the Flemish Legion was only incorporated into the SS after her husband had left it.

Folens served 30 months of his sentence before escaping to Ireland on a false passport.

Before airing, a segment of last night's programme was edited following agreement with the family. A statement from the family, denying the allegations made in the programme, was also included.

Last night, the programme's presenter Cathal O'Shannon said the cuts requested were reasonable and they were happy to include the family's denial.

But, he said, the evidence told a different story to that being told by the Folens family.

RTÉ also pointed out that, contrary to reports yesterday, no interim injunction was granted at any point to the Folens family to prevent the programme from being aired.