The Trial of Germar Rudolf in Mannheim District Court (Germany)
Day 6, 10 January 2007

Reported by Günter Deckert
Translated by J. M. Damon

Scheduled for 9 o’clock, the trial began at 9:29. No reason was given for the delay. Seven policemen and one policewoman were on hand with a police car visible in front of the entrance. The security procedure was the same as usual except that it was speedier, more efficient and was not accompanied by bullying.

Present in the courtroom were:
1) The usual members of the Court, Judge Schwab presiding;
2) District Attorney Grossmann;
3)  The two lawyers for the defense, Stolz and Bock;
4)  1 Stachu (Staatschutz) or state police agent, 1 bailiff and 2 uniformed policemen, all armed;
5)  Media: Once again, no representatives of the media were present.
Are they officially discouraged from covering the proceedings? Boycotting of their own volition?
6) Visitors: Initially 50, increased to 60, including Frau Haverbeck of Collegium Humanum in Vlotho/Weser, Dr. Rolf Kosiek of Grabert Publishing House and Lady Michèle Renouf from London. After noon the Stachu agent did not return and the uniformed policemen were relieved by two others.

Germar Rudolf appeared at 9:17, some time before the Court officially convened. Today he was not brought into court in chains.

The proceedings took place in the large chamber, which has seats for 80 visitors and 48 reporters. When Germar entered, the visitors rose in greeting and respect. This was ignored by the police, who usually warn the visitors against showing support for the defendent.

At the beginning of the session Judge Schwab announced his ruling on the materials to be included in Germar’s testimony, saying he would allow him to read only such material from his book Lectures on the Holocaust as was relevant and written in German. This is because German is the language of the Court. The judge then asked members of the Court if they had read the book. The two female judges as well as the district attorney answered in the affirmative.

The male lay judge said he had read 543 of the 571 pages while the female lay judge had read 494. Attorneys Stolz and Bock had of course read the whole thing. Germar agreed to proceed with his presentation, thus avoiding interruption or delay, even though the two lay judges had not read the entire book.

Attorney Stolz then objected to Judge Schwab’s ruling of 6 December concerning the Selbstleseverfahren (reading into the record) of Germar’s Lectures on the Holocaust. The Court adjourned for several minutes to consider the matter, then Schwab reported that, in view of the book’s number of pages, the Court stood by the ruling.

Germar then resumed his presentation, discussing the portions of his Lectures that had been included in his indictment. He explained that the key issue was the question of whether he had denied Nazi “genocide” of the Jews and specifically the precise figure of six million victims, as well as problems connected with “atonement” as well as the concepts of “Holocaustism” and “Revisionism.”

Other issues included the question of how photographs of piles of shoes and hair should be interpreted, as well as the fabled “lampshades of human skin” and “soap made from human fat;” the expressions “Permanent Solution,” “Deportation” and “Evacuation;” the concepts of “Uniqueness” vs. “Relativization;” and whether he was denying human rights to Jews by using the expression “Holocaustism.”

Germar repeatedly succeeded in demonstrating that the District Attorney had deliberately misrepresented him, mostly with deletions but also by taking sections out of context. He pointed out that the prosecutor did this in order to arrive at the “desired objective” of using Section 130 of the Penal Code (Incitement of the Masses) in the indictment.

The results of the prosecutor’s misquotations and misapplications were deliberate falsifications that distorted the meaning of what Germar had written. He also pointed out that his book was written in dialogue form, in which the opinion of the author was not stated. Germar referred to the prosecutor as a “historical nonentity” who was malicious and added that the prosecutor himself should be indicted for his misdeeds.

Germar then reached the end of Part 3 of his presentation and Judge Schwab announced a short pause until 11:30.

After the pause Germar introduced Part 4 of his presentation, saying that he would now take up the case of Fridjof Meyer and after that, in Part 5, he would deal with the rulings of the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdendes Schrifttum ("Federal Bureau for Testing Literature that Could Endanger Youth").

At 11:35, after inquiring about the length of Germar’s next presentation, Judge Schwab ordered a noontime pause until 2pm. After noon, Germar had Attorney Bock distribute visual aids to accompany Parts 4 and 5 of his presentation.

While Bock was doing this, Germar informed the Court that a human rights organization in Italy had officially designated him as a political prisoner.

Beginning his presentation, Germar discussed the article by Spiegel editor Fridjof Meyer that appeared in the May 2002 issue of the magazine Osteuropa.

He described its positive evaluation by two prosecutors, the Bochum District Attorney (in the Horst Mahler indictment) and the Stuttgart District Attorney in the Günter Deckert indictment, which likewise took place May of 2002 (and which was not acted upon for almost 18 months). Germar pointed out that Meyer’s conclusions are much closer to those of Revisionists than of the “court historians” favored by the German government. He emphasized that since Meyer was considered a mainstream historian, the government referred to his research as a “scientific investigation” while calling Germar’s research “incitement of the masses.”

Moving into Part 5 of his presentation, Germar next discussed decisions and reports of the so called “Federal Testing Bureau” that had led to his “Indexing” and his designation as “dangerous to youth.”

The sections taken as authority by the Testing Bureau flatly contradict Article 5 of the Basic Law, which guarantees freedom of scientific investigation.

Specifically, this concerned the following works:

1) Stefan Graf’s and Carlo Mattogno’s Konzentrationslager Stutthoff bei Danzig (Concentration Camp Stutthoff near Danzig). Germar pointed out that this is the only scientific investigation of this subject, thus the Testing Bureau’s indexing was based on false pretenses.

2) Graf’s and Mattogno’s Konzentrationslager Majdanek (Majdanek Concentration Camp.) Here again, these pioneering authors were the first to scientifically investigate the subject.

3) Jürgen Graf, Riese auf tönernen Füßen (The Giant With Feet of Clay.)
This is a critique of the book by Prof. Raul Hilberg, a Viennese Judaic who became a professor at a university in the US and from whom Doug Christie and Prof. Faurisson were able to extract many damaging admissions in the first trial of Ernst Zündel in Toronto in 1985.

Hilberg’s book, The Destruction of the European Jews, became a classic of exterminationist literature.

Even the title of Hilberg’s work is misleading, since 80% of the book deals with other matters.

Germar explained how Graf disproved Hilberg’s thesis by critically examining the testimonies of eyewitnesses, since Hilberg did not consider primary sources in his investigation.

4) Several articles from VffG Vierteljahresheft für freie Geschichtsforschung (Quarterly Publication for Free Historical Research) that he publishes. In this case according to the Federal Testing Bureau, the basis was “too short and not comprehensive enough.”

5) Germar’s Expert Report on Auschwitz.

6) The Hoax of the 20th Century by the American Professor Arthur Butz. The Federal Testing Bureau objected to this because, among other things, it does not include all subsequent verdicts arising from the various National Socialist trials. Germar pointed out that where history is concerned, judges are lay people, consequently their verdicts correspond to their personal opinions. Those who write the verdicts of the Testing Bureau likewise have no knowledge of scientific research in general and historiography in particular. This is evident from the very composition of the Testing Bureau: it does not include a single scientist.

The Federal Testing Bureau is intellectually incompetent to judge scientific research. Like the “Ministry of Truth” in Orwell’s prophetic work 1984 it is the bureaucracy that determines official truth for the almighty State.

In Part 6 of his presentation Germar presented a large number of quotations of world famous defenders of freedom of speech and scientific research. He spoke very eloquently of Articles 5 and 20 of German Basic Law.

These concern basic freedom and civil disobedience, the struggle for justice and the citizen’s duty to resist censorship, repression and governmental usurpation of citizens’ rights.

Germar demonstrated that Article 130 of the Penal Code (“Incitement”) is a very exceptional law since it does not protect the state, but rather damages the constitutional foundations of democracy.

For this reason, Article 130 is inherently unconstitutional. Germar said that he does not acknowledge the authenticity of this “Special Law” which is ascribed to “German history,” meaning the Jewish policies of the Third Reich. He assumes the right and duty to freely express his opinion in both the spoken and written word.

The origin of the repressive and unconstitutional Article 130 is pure politics, with misapplication by the judiciary. He asked: what would happen if more Germans refused to submit to censorship and the deprivation of their human rights?

For example, what if German historians finally said “Enough! We do not believe in your so-called “Holocaust!” He observed that German historians lack the the courage of their convictions. In this regard he referred to his dealings with Professors Maser and Topitsch, specialists in the life of Hitler. The government persuaded them to abandon their research.

He also mentioned the Austrian witch-hunt against Prof. Pfeifersberger, which finally drove him to suicide. In Germar's view most German historians are cowardly liars. He has to agree with David Irving in this respect.

Germar then gave examples of how the German media also participate in the official “concert of lies,” including several selections from the book So lügen Journalisten! ("See How Journalists Lie") written by former Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reporter Udo Holtkötte.

He included a disclosure in BILD Magazine as well as a press statement released by District Attorney Grossmann in the summer of 2006 in which Grossmann wrote that Germar had also been charged with anti Semitic activities, although nothing written by this same Grossmann was to be found in the indictment. It was clear for all to see how this revelation affected Grossmann. He attempted to distract himself by juggling with his pencil, but did not succeed as it fell to the floor several times. The judge stared at him but said nothing. Afterwards Grossmann made no comment on Germar’s revelations.

Germar explained that in the countries where he had lived for the past ten years, historical research and revision were not punishable offenses, whereas German laws are similar to those of China and North Korea. The appropriate measure for dealing with controversial historical research and publication is argumentation, not coercion and violence. He pointed out that he cannot possibly be “resocialized” in prison, that is, “re-integrated into society.” On the contrary, the government is doing everything it can to destroy him, his family and his reputation. At 16:10 he ended his testimony with the observation that “Violence always brings forth counter violence!”

Germar did not appear to be in top form today. His voice was hoarse, suggesting that he might have a cold.

Judge Schwab announced that the following should be entered into the proceedings:
1) VHO website issue for 29 June 2004;
2) VHO website issue for 2 July 2004;
3) Stuttgart District Court Verdict of 23 May 1995, which concerns the 14 months that he has now been incarcerated on account of an entry in his Auschwitz Expert Report that he allegedly did not write, but rather the “Remer Circle,” to be entered by oral testimony. Attorney Stolz objected to the ruling and requested a decision by the Court. The Court adjurned briefly and denied the motion because “unneccessary.” Today’s session ended at 4:15pm.

Günter Deckert
Weinheim/Bergstraße, 10 January 2007

Whoever refers to my reports on Germar’s trial, please be so kind as to mention my name.