The Trial of Germar Rudolf, Mannheim District Court

DAY 1 (14 Nov 2006)

As Reported by Günter Deckert
Translated by J. M. Damon

MANNHEIM, GERMANY -- The trial of chemist Germar Rudolf for the German legal equivalent of the "crime" of “Holocaust’ denial” is set for 9 a.m. and begins at 9:12 a.m., thus much more punctual than the Zündel court headed by Judge Meinerzhagen.

Present at the Trial:
Presiding Judge Schwab. Around age 50, speaks regional dialect not of the Mannheim region. He probably comes from south of Karlsruhe; never pronounces endings of verbs for example “habe” instead of “haben.”

Two professional female judges, both around age 40.

A male and a female lay judge – she younger than her male counterpart, who looks about 50 years-of-age.

District Attorney (DA) Grossmann. After 9:30 he is joined by Chief DA Heiler in reading the indictment.

Defense Attorneys Sylvia Stolz and Ludwig Bock. Attorney Rieger is apparently no longer part of the defense team. Bock, appointed by the Court, is not much help, according to Rudolf.

Two Staatsschützer or “staschu” (Federal political police in civilian clothes); two bailiffs and six policemen in uniform, all armed. Presumably the State is trying to make this prisoner of conscience look like a violent desperado.

Media: At the beginning there is only a team of TV reporters from Südwestfunk (SWR) and Rhein-Neckar (RNF) broadcasting companies). There are 11 representatives of the newspaper guild but no Zastrow, no one from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). However, there is someone from Rhein-Neckar office of Bild. After the first pause only seven remain, and after noon there are only two.

Others present: around 50 spectators, including Horst Mahler and Lady Michèle Renouf. Tomorrow Mahler is supposed to begin serving a nine-month’s sentence at Cottbus Prison in Brandenburg for the crime of Verächtlichmachung der Juden (Making Jews appear ridiculous).

At 9:10 a.m., Germar Rudolf is brought from the “catacombs” (windowless prison cells in the cellar.) Ernst Zündel and I know these prison cells all too well.

Most of the spectators stand and begin applauding when Germar is brought in. Judge Schwab forbids applauding and warns the public that in future he will punish it; according to regulations, he can impose a fine and jail time as well. We are very familiar with this from Judge Meinerzhagen.

Next the Court summarizes the biography of the accused.

Then, at 9:13, Grossmann begins reading the indictment, relieved by Chief District Attorney Heiler.

The reading of the indictment continues until 9:35.

Something unexpected: revisionist publisher Siegfried Verbeke is also charged in the indictment!

It turns out that the Mannheim DA went ahead and filed charges against Verbeke, even though Judge Schwab had overruled this.

The Court had disallowed the indictment of Verbeke for lack of jurisdiction for one thing (there was no proof that Verbeke’s materials from his Belgian website Vri Historisch Onderzoek [VHO], had been sent to Baden-Württemberg.)

VHO is Verbeke’s and Rudolf’s website in Belgium (www.vho.org).

Furthermore it had not been sufficiently established that Verbeke participated in criminal activity (the Internet Presence) since Rudolf claimed full responsibility for all the postings at that site.

Judge Schwab asks Rudolf if he will be willing to give testimony to this effect and he says yes.

Attorney Bock next requests use of an overhead projector so that Rudolf can show the court illustrations and other materials he has prepared in support of his testimony.
Judge Schwab refuses to allow this, but states that Rudolf will be allowed to print as many copies as needed and then distribute them to the Court. He says he will gladly interrupt court proceedings for this.

After brief consideration Rudolf decides it is not necessary to make copies at this time, since this can just as well be done at a later date.

Shortly afterwards Attorney Stolz makes the same motion and receives the same answer.

She then demands a court ruling, which is granted.

At 9:40 Rudolf begins narrating his story “from the beginning.” Dramatically and in great detail, he impressively describes the process by which he came to be a historical revisionist, specifically a Holocaust revisionist. It would take too much time and would require too much space to relate all the stations along this path. Most topics and incidents pertaining to this subject are familiar and readily available from other sources. Rudolf’s introduction to historical revisionism was a series of lectures by Paul Rassinier, What is the Truth?

At 11:15 the presiding judge declares a pause for a half hour, perhaps because Rudolf seems tired. After the pause the court announces its ruling on the defense motion by Stolz. It is refused, of course. According to Paragraph 169 of German Court Procedure, the Court is not required to advise the public of everything that goes on in court.
At 12:56 the Court adjourns the court for lunch, resuming at 2:00 pm.
After noon the number of policemen in the courtroom is reduced by half.

By 3:30 Judge Schwab is satisfied with the day’s proceedings.
A good stopping place has been reached in Rudolf’s testimony, namely his flight from England to the USA by way of Ireland. Proceedings to be resumed on Thursday, 16 Nov at 9:00 am.

Observer’s Remarks

Germar made an impression of great self confidence and self control.
He makes it clear that he understands the judicial apparatus perfectly when he depicts the Court as being an instrument of the Federal Republic / German Reich / “OMF” (Organizational Form of a Modality of Foreign Rule, Prof. Carlo Schmid’s term for the Federal Republic of Germany).

He calls the present government Befehlsempfänger (“Takers of orders” in the sense of being a subservient vassal state, taking orders from on high.)

At the beginning of the trial he stated loudly and clearly that he will submit no evidentiary motions for the reason that he rejects the principle of untrained and scientifically incompetent persons (“people without a clue”) making decisions regarding the subject matter of his research, his findings or their validity.

Furthermore, he emphatically rejects the idea that any parliament or legislative body should presume to determine and define the limits and results of scientific investigation.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, Germar indulged in a number of unnecessary verbal attacks on well known names in the revisionist movement that really did not fit into the framework of his narrative, and thus were out of place.

This seems especially true if when we consider that the remarks do not aid him in this judicial system.

Otherwise, where content is concerned, his performance and appearance were outstanding.

For “neophytes" it was an excellent introduction to the history of the worldwide revisionist movement since the end of the 1980s.

We do not expect that Rudolf’s attorneys will submit motions for evidence, since that is the stated desire and intent of the accused.

Since Rudolf up to the present has pointedly made this known in everything that he has written including those works written under pseudonyms, we can assume that a verdict will be reached before the year is out.

The Court now has only to “evaluate.”

It is very clear, and not just to me alone, that the court already determined that Germar, like Ernst Zündel, must be severely punished in order to deter other scientists from researching the taboo subjects of “Holocaust” and “Auschwitz.”

In today’s evening news on RNF television network, there was a fairly long “news” report in which even “Nazi hunter” Hans Heiko Klein, a former district attorney in Mannheim, was allowed to “participate.”

The same footage, although without Hans-Heiko was to be seen in the news program Landesschau Baden-Württemberg shortly after 7:45pm in the 3rd SW, Broadcasting Network.

I am very curious to see what will be reported in the area press tomorrow.

Günter Deckert

A Request: whoever reads and circulates this report, which is not a newspaper article written for the established media, please be so kind as to mention my name in conjunction with it. Thanks.

Ernst Zündel was sentenced at the Mannheim court on February 15th 2007 to five years imprisonment. For more on the Zundel case, click here.