Some good news from Germany where a prison sentence against 94-year-old Ursula Haverbeck has been overturned.
She was due to begin this sentence soon, her ‘crime’ having been to dispute orthodox opinions about German history.
Ursula is Free!
adminGermanyHistorical memory lawsUrsula Haverbeck
Ursula Haverbeck – the 94-year old German scholar and publisher who was facing 12 months in prison for the ‘crime’ of raising questions about the ‘Holocaust’ – will not now be jailed, following a decision just announced in Berlin.
Even after the rejection of a final legal appeal last October, Ursula’s tireless lawyer Wolfram Nahrath had persisted with arguments that it was unacceptable for a 94-year-old lady to be incarcerated – and the authorities seem finally to have accepted this.
We shall have fuller details of the Berlin decision soon.
What is already clear is that international protests played a part in convincing the German authorities that jailing Ursula Haverbeck was a propaganda disaster for them, and that their reputation would suffer even further if the sentence were enforced.
Thanks are therefore due to her lawyer Herr Nahrath, but also to the international campaign that drew attention to the original sentence and to the tyranny of Germany’s jailing of dissident historians.
The next step should be the repeal of the volksverhetzung law itself, which is an outrage against traditional European standards of free historical debate and rational argument.
GERMANY IS ALREADY KNOWN for its laws banning free political debate and historical research – most notoriously for the recent decision to imprison 94-year-old Ursula Haverbeck. It has become almost routine for Germany to deny basic human rights to its own citizens, while welcoming alien immigrants from every corner of the world.
Now the German authorities have again breached their basic obligations under the Schengen treaty, by which fellow Europeans are supposed to be allowed freedom to travel across its borders.
They are attempting to impose a life ban on Spanish nationalist activist and Heritage and Destiny magazine (H&D) writer Isabel Peralta – despite the fact she has never even been charged with, let alone convicted of, any criminal offence in Germany.
As we reported in Issue 111 of H&D (but has only yesterday been picked up by the mainstream press in Spain), German police detained Isabel on 6th October while she was minding her own business in the central German university town of Marburg. She was served with official papers ordering her to leave the country.
This followed earlier harassment at Manchester Airport, when Isabel was detained for more than six hours on 24th September, the night before her speech at the H&D meeting in Preston, which can be viewed online here.
It’s now apparent that UK authorities abused Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, so as to do a favour for their German colleagues. The UK authorities knew perfectly well that they had no valid reason to detain Isabel, but they used Schedule 7 as a ‘fishing expedition’ to collect political intelligence from her phone and computer, and pass it to the German authorities.
This has nothing to do with terrorism and nothing to do with UK law: British police and border security have become accomplices in the German authorities’ campaign of political persecution against nationalists.
Unlike post-Brexit UK citizens, Isabel is of course (as a Spanish citizen) entitled under European law (in fact under the European constitution) to enter Germany free of harassment, and for that matter to work or study in Germany.
Such rights can only be withdrawn in very exceptional circumstances: Even convicted criminals are normally entitled to these rights.
In order to expel Isabel, and now to argue that she should be excluded from Germany for life, the authorities have had to argue not that she is a criminal (because they know that she has broken no German laws) but that she is a serious threat to “national security”, because she supposedly has such high-level connections with dangerous subversives in leadership positions among the “far right”, including people who aim to overthrow the German government! https://www.youtube.com/embed/fiFIpMJoo1w
This extraordinary paranoia reflects the fact that despite the evident short-term weakness of German nationalist movements, those who govern the occupied Federal Republic are aware of their lack of legitimacy. They know that their rule since the end of (blatant) Allied military occupation in the early 1950s has been based on lies, and they fear (correctly) that Isabel Peralta, as a brave and intelligent advocate of truth, is capable of inspiring a movement among new generations of Europeans that will eventually win.
That’s why they had to invent a quite ludicrous case against her, which now aims to exclude her from Germany for life. This legal and constitutional outrage will of course be appealed, if necessary as far as the European courts.
H&D and our colleagues in several European countries have been working for the last two months on a major investigation of the extreme measures that have been adopted by the enemies of nationalism to subvert our movement and deny legal and constitutional rights. Next week we shall publish the results of this investigation.
Isabel is still facing legal proceedings in Spain under their version of the race laws (though this case is unrelated to her exclusion from Germany and does not provide any valid reason for the German authorities’ behaviour). She is also bringing a civil action against the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Jerusalem Post, a case which has already begun in the Madrid courts.
adminFranceHistorical memory lawsRobert Faurissonsite introVincent Reynouard
French revisionist scholar Vincent Reynouard was arrested in Scotland on Thursday 10th November. He is presently in an Edinburgh prison cell, awaiting a court hearing on 24th November to determine whether he should be extradited to France, where he would be jailed under that country’s laws restricting historical and scientific enquiry.
Vincent Reynouard built his scholarly reputation with a detailed re-examination of what had been termed the ‘Massacre of Oradour’, and went on to become one of the world’s leading sceptical investigators of the ‘Holocaust’. Francophone readers should visit his excellent website.
British and American readers might be shocked that a specialist squad of police from SO15 – the Counter-Terrorism Command, directed from London – swooped on a small Scottish village to arrest this 53-year-old scholar, who is not accused of anything that would be a crime in the UK.
Yet in fact this is simply the latest example – though an especially important example – of an increasing trend across Europe, where politicised courts and prosecutors, aided by politicised police forces and intelligence agencies, are seeking to crush any dissent and enforce a quasi-religious obedience to one particular view of 20th century history.
The question that should immediately occur to any educated European is: why?
Why should our rulers be so afraid of what remains a small minority of scholars who – inspired by revisionist pioneers Robert Faurisson in France and Arthur Butz in the USA – have persisted in raising serious questions about the alleged murder of six million Jews, in unfeasible homicidal gas chambers, on the undocumented alleged orders of Adolf Hitler?
Any other area of history with such blatant evidential problems would have attracted dozens of academic sceptics. Yet with a handful of honourable exceptions, the academic world has not only been cowed into silence, but has queued up to accept lucrative commissions and tenured positions promoting the new religion of Holocaustianity.
Our rulers approach has been the well-tried one of ‘carrot and stick’.
The carrot is the promise of well-remunerated posts in universities and charities, combined with fat cheques from publishers, newspapers, television stations and movie studios.
The stick (increasingly used during the last quarter-century) has involved heavy fines and prison sentences. In Germany, the 94-year-old Ursula Haverbeck has been sentenced to another year in prison, and is expected to begin her incarceration any day now. Her equally courageous compatriot Horst Mahler (now 86) has at the last count spent about fifteen years in prison since his 70th birthday, again for the ‘crimes’ of publishing articles and books, and giving interviews about this forbidden area of 20th century history. And in the USA the exiled German chemist Germar Rudolf faces determined efforts to have him extradited to Germany, where he would certainly be handed a long jail sentence.
So far the UK has no such specific law criminalising historical revisionism, and several British historians, including leftists and liberals such as Timothy Garton Ash, have commendably condemned all such laws.
In 2008 a London court rejected the German government’s request for the extradition of Australian revisionist Dr Fredrick Töben under a European Arrest Warrant. Will a similar situation protect Vincent Reynouard?
New extradition arrangements post-Brexit have only been in force since 11 pm on 31st December 2020, so while we can see the statutory position, we have little in the way of case law (on either side of the border).
I am not a lawyer, but I was closely involved in research work for the Töben case, and have had good reason more recently to refresh my memory and understanding of the legal position regarding EU citizens travelling or resident in the UK.
Traditionally the UK’s position on extradition (as was once common internationally) was based on two essential principles. One was the existence of an extradition treaty with the country concerned, which entailed mutual respect for legal systems. For example, the lack of such a treaty with Spain (due to political embarrassment over the presence of numerous anti-Franco exiles, including terrorists, in the UK) meant that Spain became notorious for decades as a refuge for British criminals – i.e. non-political criminals such as bank robbers.
Once such a treaty was in place, the essential principle was ‘dual criminality’, i.e. that the offence of which the requested fugitive was charged should also be an offence in the country from which extradition was sought. Naturally the criminal laws involved would rarely be identical, and it was up to the courts to resolve whether ‘dual criminality’ applied.
In a case such as that of Vincent Reynouard, this would once have presented a problem for the authorities. It would have been necessary to prove not only that he had committed ‘Holocaust denial’ (not in itself of course an offence in the UK), but that he had done so in a manner which also contravened some UK law (such as the laws against “inciting racial hatred”).
As readers can easily imagine, the “dual criminality” requirement allowed legal loopholes to be exploited in any number of criminal cases, especially those which involved wealthy crooks, or IRA terrorists who had a well-funded support network, and whose extradition from European countries (or the USA) to the UK was occasionally blocked.
So even setting aside our enemies’ broader political agenda, there were (from the general public’s viewpoint) apparent practical advantages to the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) system, which after long discussion replaced the traditional extradition laws, and took effect in the UK on 1st January 2004.
Under the EAW there was a fundamental assumption that all legal systems within the EU could trust each other to respect natural justice, etc.; and there was no need to establish “dual criminality”.
In place of the latter principle, the EAW established a list of “framework offences”. Once it could be shown that a fugitive was accused of anything that fell within these quite broadly defined “framework offences”, he would be extradited very swiftly in what amounted to a “rubber-stamp” procedure even though it formally took place in court. There was no provision in most cases for the courts to investigate the full circumstances of the alleged ‘crime’ before extradition under an EAW.
One of the framework offences was “racism and xenophobia”. However, so far as ‘Holocaust denial’ was concerned, there remained a potential loophole.
This loophole only existed because of objections that were raised in the House of Lords during passage of the legislation that wrote the EAW system into UK law.
Under repeated cross-examination by peers, the Home Office minister in the Lords (Baroness Scotland) gave a specific assurance that the EAW would not amount to a back door criminalisation of Holocaust denial in the UK.
The position was to be as follows. If any element of the ‘offence’ of ‘Holocaust denial’ had taken place in the UK, it would be deemed to fall under UK law and therefore (unless it could be shown that it also involved other existing crimes under UK law) extradition would not take place.
A ‘Holocaust denier’ would only be extradited under a European Arrest Warrant if it could be shown by the requesting country’s authorities that the ‘crime’ had been committed purely and simply within the jurisdiction of the country concerned.
The specific example given to Parliament was of someone who had made a speech in Cologne market place denying the ‘Holocaust’, and had then escaped to the UK before being apprehended. In such a case (provided other boxes were ticked, such as the offence potentially attracting a prison sentence of more than 12 months) the requested person would be extradited.
However, if someone had produced a magazine, or a book, or a website, or an online video, etc., ‘denying the Holocaust’, then such a person would not be extradited. Even though part of the ‘offence’ might have been committed in France, Germany or wherever, part of it would also have been committed in the UK.
The minister’s precise words to Parliament included the following assurance:
“Holocaust denial …is a very particular offence. We would say that those engaging in that endeavour in part in this country would not be capable of being extradited as the offence would in part have allegedly been committed in this country, and in this country it is not an offence. So we would not extradite those involved in it.”
Such was the difficulty for the German authorities in the Töben case. They issued a European Arrest Warrant, and Töben was arrested while merely passing through London’s Heathrow Airport on 1st October 2008. He was jailed pending extradition, which at first was expected to be a ‘rubber-stamp’ process.
However, on closer examination (once Töben was represented by extradition specialist Kevin Lowry-Mullins rather than by a duty solicitor) it was found that the German request was insufficiently detailed. The reason for such vagueness was obvious: the authorities both in Berlin and London were well aware that Töben’s alleged criminal conduct did not fall within the very limited definition of ‘Holocaust denial crimes’ for which people could be extradited from the UK. To do so would be a flagrant betrayal of pledges to Parliament during passage of the EAW into UK law.
Consequently, the legal difficulty (and political embarrassment) was colossal. After the Westminster magistrate ruled against extradition, the British and German authorities swiftly dropped their appeal, resulting in Töben’s release.
So the question in 2022 becomes whether the new arrangements that have replaced the EAW post-Brexit, in relation to extradition from or to the UK, are in any way similar in their application to Vincent’s case.
These new laws were agreed as part of the ‘Trade and Cooperation Agreement’ between the UK and the EU which regulates the whole spectrum of such relations post-Brexit. It passed into UK law in the European Union (Future Relationship) Act 2020, which took effect at 11 pm on 31st December 2020.
Broadly speaking this replicates the EAW, in that it is intended to fast-track extradition (in each direction) between the UK and EU countries, and is similar to the existing arrangements that the EU has with Norway and Iceland.
Specifically, there are very limited grounds on which it will be possible to argue that Vincent should not be extradited, and there is a presumption that the whole procedure should be completed swiftly.
It is potentially important that the new law – unlike the EAW system – does not specifically state that the UK and EU nations have “mutual trust” and “mutual confidence” in one other’s legal systems.
Moreover it is stated in the new law that any extradition should be “proportionate” and in particular should avoid long periods of pre-trial detention.
One potential argument is that the French legal system is so heavily politicised in respect of thought-criminals (especially ‘Holocaust deniers’) that there are serious grounds for believing that Vincent Reynouard’s fundamental rights would be imperilled by extradition.
There will be extensive updates here at the Real History blog on the Vincent Reynouard case as it develops. And we shall very soon be reporting on a broader new initiative to advance revisionist scholarship with the aid of a new generation of European intellectual adventurers (to use Professor Robert Faurisson’s celebrated term). — Peter Rushton
Ursula Haverbeck, born on November 8, 1928, has been told she must turn herself in to the prison within two weeks of having received the order, to serve her one-year sentence. This would mean presenting herself at the gate by October 25, 2022. The nearly 94-year-old German woman is guilty of none other than asking inconvenient questions about “the Holocaust” and where those alleged murders took place. After years of asking questions and never receiving answers, she drew “politically incorrect” conclusions.
With the help of an online translator and a few of my own corrections to it, this is my best effort to present an English version of her letter which she submitted to the court authorities. Frau Haverbeck’s original letter in German follows the English version. If bilingual readers find errors in interpretation, please put those in the comments.
It is simply astonishing with what chutzpah the so-called “justice” system in Germany operates, in order to keep the official narrative going. Someone – I wonder who – must be very afraid to let the truth emerge about what really happened in Germany during that chapter in history commonly referred to as World War Two.
For previous articles about Ursula Haverbeck on my website: please see this and this, both articles from December 2020 and this one from November of 2020 just after she was released from her 2&1/2 years in prison.
Here is the letter from Ursula Haverbeck:
**********************************
District Court Tiergarten
10548 Berlin
Business reference (251b Ds) 231 Js 1640/16 (54/16)
Objection to your communication of 07.09.2022
Notification to the Regional Court of Berlin
October 11, 2022
Dear Sir or Madam,
The judgment of the District Court Tiergarten of December 4, 2020 cannot be final, as the trial took place without charge. As a defendant, I had no idea what the trial was about. I was released from prison 12 days before the trial, had to find my way around my house, where there was water damage, and only at 4 p.m. the day before the 1st day of the trial (November 17, 2020, 10 a.m.) received the message that I had to attend in Berlin. I arrived in Berlin completely tired out and confused. I also do not have the Charges. That is why I could not prepare. On the 2nd day of the trial, the judge told me that I did not have to appear on the 3rd date on December 4, 2020, as only two witnesses were to be heard. On December 4, 2020, however, these witnesses were not heard (although present), but in fact a verdict was announced, without my presence and without the Last Word of the Accused. I still do not know the verdict of this case. Could you be so kind as to send me the indictment and verdict? Thank you!
Thus, the judgment of the Regional Court of April 1, 2022 is also invalid, because it states there and in your communication of September 7, 2022 quite clearly that the first judgment of the District Court Tiergarten of October 16, 2017 in conjunction with the second judgment of December 4, 2020 had been combined to a total penalty. Without the second trial at the Tiergarten District Court, the overall sentence would not have been possible. The sentence of six months would have remained or the appeal would have had to be upheld: i.e. no penalty.
How is it at all possible that a “judge at the district court” (cover page of the judgment of April 1, 2022) makes a judgment in the regional court – in a complicated and publicly known case?
With this multitude of procedural errors, why was my appeal simply rejected without any justification? Even legal laymen can see that something is wrong.
I request the termination of the proceedings and the annulment of the judgment of the Regional Court of April 1, 2022. I would also like to point out that I am no longer in a position to serve a prison sentence due to my health.
Awaiting an early reply and
with kind regards,
~Ursula Haverbeck ******************************** Here is the original letter in German from Ursula Haverbeck to the District Court and to Berlin. ********************************
Amtsgericht Tiergarten
10548 Berlin
Geschäftszeichen (251b Ds) 231 Js 1640/16 (54/16)
Einspruch gegen Ihre Mitteilung vom 07.09.2022
Nachrichtlich an das Landgericht Berlin
11.10.2022
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
das Urteil des Amtsgerichts Tiergarten vom 04.12.2020 kann nicht rechtskräftig sein, da der Prozeß ohne Anklage stattfand. Ich hatte als Angeklagte keine Ahnung, worauf sich das Verfahren bezog. Ich bin 12 Tage vor dem Prozeß aus der Haft entlassen worden, mußte mich im meinem Haus zurechtfmden, wo ein Wasserschaden war, und bekam erst am Vortag zum 1. Prozeßtag (17.11.2020, 10 Uhr) um 16 Uhr die Mitteilung, daß ich mich in Berlin einzufinden hätte. Ich kam völlig übernächtigt in Berlin an und war vollständig verwirrt. Ich habe auch keine Anklage. Daher konnte ich mich auch nicht vorbereiten. Am 2. Prozeßtag sagte mir der Richter, daß ich zum 3. Termin am 04.12.2020 nicht erscheinen müsste, da nur noch zwei Zeugen zu vernehmen wären. Am 04.12.2020 wurden aber diese Zeugen nicht vernommen (obgleich anwesend), tatsächlich dann aber ein Urteil verkündet, ohne meine Anwesenheit und ohne das letzte Wort der Angeklagten. Ich kenne das Urteil dieses Verfahrens bis heute nicht. Könnten Sie so freundlich sein, mir Anklage und Urteil zuzusenden? Danke!
Damit ist auch das Urteil des Landgerichts vom 01.04.2022 hinfällig, denn es heißt dort und in Ihrer Mitteilung vom 07.09.2022 ganz eindeutig, daß das erste Urteil des Amtsgerichts Tiergarten vom 16.10.2017 in Verbindung mit dem zweiten Urteil vom 04.12.2020 zu einer Gesamtstrafe verbunden worden sei. Ohne das zweite Verfahren am Amtsgericht Tiergarten wäre die Gesamtstrafenbildung gar nicht möglich gewesen. Es wäre bei der Strafe von sechs Monaten geblieben oder es hätte der Berufung statt gegeben werden müssen: keine Strafe.
Wie ist es überhaupt möglich, daß eine ,,Richterin am Amtsgericht” (11. Deckblatt des Urteils vom 01.04.2022) ein Urteil des Landgerichts fällt – in einem komplizierten und öffentlich bekannten Verfahren?
Bei dieser Vielzahl von Verfahrensfehlem: Warum wurde meine Revision einfach verworfen, ohne jede Begründung? Da können selbst juristische Laien erkennen, daß etwas nicht stimmt.
Ich beantrage die Einstellung des Verfahrens und die Aufhebung des Urteils des Landgerichts vom 01.04.2022. Zudem weise ich daraufhin, daß ich mich heute gesundheitlich nicht mehr in der Lage sehe, eine Haftstrafe anzutreten.
In Erwartung einer baldigen Antwort und
mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Ursula Haverbeck
[
This Autumn 93-Year Old German Grandmother to Serve Another Year for Thought Crimes
Ursula Haverbeck’s crime is questioning the Hollywood version of World War II. What sort of civilized country repeatedly jails a nongenarian for non-violent thinking for herself?]
Ursula Haverbeck: The Verdict Is Final; Sentence Expected to Begin in the Fall Friday, August 19, 2022 https://newsrnd.com/life/2022-08-19-ursula-haverbeck–the-verdict-is-final—the-charge-to-begin-the-sentence-is-expected-to-be-in-the-fall.S1O9CzpR9.html
Ursula Haverbeck was sentenced to one year in prison for hate speech. The decision is now final. The 93-year-old is due to start her sentence soon.
Ursula Haverbeck in November 2020: She publicly claimed that the Holocaust never happened. Photo: Filip Singer / EFE / EPO
The judgment of the Berlin Regional Court against the 93-year-old Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck for incitement to hatred is final. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on July 28. This was announced by a spokeswoman for the court on Friday when asked by SPIEGEL.
In 2016 Haverbeck had claimed in a public lecture and in 2018 in an interview published on the Internet that the Holocaust did not exist. In April 2022, she was sentenced to a total of one year in prison for sedition. The revision of the defense was unsuccessful.
Despite her old age, the chamber ruled out a suspended sentence because Haverbeck had shown no insight or remorse. The presiding judge of the Berlin Regional Court stated in the pronouncement of the verdict that there was “no alternative” to imprisonment. Not even a previously served sentence of two and a half years in prison would have impressed Haverbeck.
“Nothing can stop you.”
According to the responsible public prosecutor, Haverbeck is expected to receive a summons to begin this sentence in the fall.
It remains to be seen whether her lawyer will try to justify his client’s incapacity for imprisonment.
Her lawyer Wolfram Nahrath could not be reached for comment on Friday afternoon. (Der Spiegel)
Posted by admin978 on April 1, 2022 · Leave a Comment
On Friday afternoon an appeal court in Berlin confirmed the conviction and 12-month jail sentence against 93-year-old publisher and author Ursula Haverbeck.
Her ‘crimes’ involved expressing her opinions on German history, and asking ‘forbidden’ questions about the alleged murder of six million European Jews and the unique ‘mass murder weapon’ of the homicidal gas chamber.
In the video below our correspondent Lady Michèle Renouf – who has been a friend of Ursula’s for many years and was in court for the final day of the appeal hearing – interviews Nikolai Nerling, known to German nationalists as the Volkslehrer, whose filmed discussion with Ursula formed the basis of one of the ‘criminal’ charges.
A further report on the case will appear here soon.
Filed under Freedom of Speech, Germany, Historical Revisionism, Incitement of Hatred, Movement News, Police State · Tagged with
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December 13, 2020
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The Week’s Most Stoned, Boned, and Bemoaned Headlines
“VEE HAFF VAYS OF MAKING YOU NOT TALK.”
Last week saw the 79th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, a.k.a. the day the
Japanese favored the world with a strikingly vivid real-life
illustration of the phrase “biting off more than you can chew.” Pearl
Harbor Day is certainly an appropriate time for reflecting upon what a
terrible, terrible world this would be if the Axis powers had won World
War II.
Imagine Germany in 2020 if the U.S. and Soviet Union had not beaten some democratic sense into the totalitarian Nazi state. Imagine a Germany that had not been immolatingly guided into embracing the sacred tenets of freedom and human rights. A Germany not brought to heel in 1945 would surely be a monstrous, oppressive society that tortures 92-year-old women just because they don’t parrot state doctrine.
Oh, wait; that’s Germany today. Sorry, Hitler!
Ursula Haverbeck is 92 years old, and “free and democratic” Germany just can’t stop imprisoning her. One could reasonably ask why any major world power—or, frankly, any minor world power—would feel the need to keep locking up one elderly woman. What manner of criminal mischief could this senior scofflaw possibly be engaged in to merit repeated stints in the pokey? Did she plow through an open-air market in her Volkswagen? Is she a suspect in the disappearance of Hansel and Gretel?
Nope. She won’t stop saying that Auschwitz wasn’t an extermination camp. And the fact that one insignificant old lady holds a view that the state finds objectionable is something that free and democratic Germany simply cannot allow.
In 2016 Haverbeck was sentenced to ten months imprisonment for saying hurty words about Auschwitz. When she was released, the state asked her, “Has your punishment taught you to stop holding your opinion?” Haverbeck said no, and she was sent back to the pen for another two and a half years.
A few weeks ago, she was released again. And again, the state asked her if she would recite history in the manner that free and democratic Germany insists it must be recited.
Unfortunately, the villainous granny still refused to parrot the scripted words that the free-thought-loving, human-rights-respecting German government was forcing her to recite, so back to jail she went last week. Read More
As reported by Der Tagesspiegel:
Ursula Haverbeck repeatedly claims that there was no mass murder in Auschwitz. She was just in jail—and was immediately put on trial again afterwards. The 92-year-old was sentenced to one year imprisonment just one month after her release from a prison in Bielefeld. She was released at the beginning of November after serving a total of two and a half years.
In the words of Tagesspiegel, “She kept asserting that Auschwitz was not an extermination camp.” And the German government has pledged to continue imprisoning and re-imprisoning this frail nonagenarian until she quits “asserting” stuff that the government considers untrue.
Thank heavens the Allies prevailed in Germany. Otherwise, who knows what kind of dictatorial nightmare that nation might be today?
Published by carolyn on Thu, 2020-12-10 00:48
Lüge und Wahrheit
(Lie and Truth)
A column by Thomas Fischer
Thomas Fischer, born in 1953, is a noted German jurist of the 2nd Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice. Fischer is the presiding judge of the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe. His annual commentary on the Penal Code, “Beck’s Short Commentaries,” is considered the Bible of German Criminal Law. He is a honorary professor at the University of Würzburg lecturing on criminal law, criminal trial law and the sociology of law. In 2017, he was selected for that year’s European Press Prize shortlist.Through his weekly column “Fischer im Recht” on ZEIT ONLINE, Thomas Fischer has become a familiar name to a broad nationwide audience.
EXCEPT THAT HE DOESN’T explain it. His long-winded commentary is long on empty rhetoric, short on compelling reason. I decided to post this opinion piece “Lie and Truth” that was published recently by Spiegel to give you a chance to see for yourself the haphazard discourse that passes for the voice of wisdom in German constitutional law. This man is a disgrace, not only because he is grossly obese (which makes it hard to even look at him), but because he is politically motivated and not above resorting to lies and baseless insults against his fellow Germans, whose legitimate questions he cannot honestly answer. See for yourself. Note that I have added a few of my own comments in red. -cy
[The following was automatically translated from the German by Deep L. 11/20/2020 Holocaust-Leugnerin Ursula Haverbeck: Zu alt für Strafe? – DER SPIEGEL]
Lie and truth by Thomas Fischer
§ 130 paragraph 3 StGB reads:
Anyone who publicly or in an assembly approves, denies or trivializes an act committed under the rule of National Socialism in the manner described in § 6 para. 1 of the International Criminal Code in a manner likely to disturb the public peace, either publicly or in an assembly, shall be punished by imprisonment for up to five years or by a fine.
[CY – To understand this, I found Article 6 of the Int. Criminal Code, which reads:
Article 6: Individual Criminal Responsibility
1. A person who planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of a crime referred to in Articles 2 to 4 of the present Statute, shall be individually responsible for the crime.]
__________________________
Many call that which is subsequently punished [under § 130] an “Auschwitz lie. Those who commit one of the acts, that is, approve, deny, or trivialize the Holocaust, on the other hand, call it an “Auschwitz lie” to claim that the Holocaust took place on the generally known [substitute ‘believed’] scale. The reasonable argue with the mad, the truthtellers with the liars, about the right to the word “lie.” Of course, no one can win this fight on the battlefield of counter-arguments, which makes both sides all the more bitter the more important the word fetishes with which they throw at each other are to them.
There is not the slightest doubt that the earth is a sphere and not a tray, that it orbits around the sun and not the sun around Venus, that stones fall down because masses have gravity, and that in and by the leading state of the NSDAP tens of millions of people have been murdered for reasons that were called “racial” and are now called “racist,” because this word is somehow better and truer, since on the one hand there are no human “races” at all, but on the other hand the racists are called that way because they claim it, mostly connected with the courageous thesis that they themselves belong to the better, more beautiful, and in any case somehow more valuable “race” by lucky providence. [Did you follow that long sentence? Try again if necessary. He’s making a false analogy between ‘flat-earthers’ and ‘racists.’ There is no connection.] That, one may think, is then nevertheless stupid; one must decide. Purely humanly seen, it is understandable and touching, and not really surprising, that one’s own sand castle seems to one as the most beautiful, one’s own nose as the most delicate, and one’s own stupidity as the most significant. Of course, the fun ends when one draws the conclusion that one is in league with nature and the spirit of the world when one smashes other people’s noses. [As you will notice as you read on, he takes cheap swipes and uses insults very liberally, in place of any kind of valid point.]
What the truth is, the whole, real, immovable, and by what one can recognize it, is a quite old question. It is a part of human nature, although it deals with it only in passing. Dogs, cats and monkeys do not fight over the truth, because everything is reality to them and memory is only one form of it. Humans long for it when they walk on dream paths. But we have to live with the brain that we have and with the environment that we are. The truth is, once we leave aside the very great sources of truth, all of them located in the beyond or in concepts, which have been invented over the millennia and which are all characterized by the fact that theyrenounce any reality outside of themselves,a common, socially related reconstruction of reality influenced by evaluations, symbols and prognoses.It depends on them when more than one person is present, that is, practically always with the exception of the state of “delusions”. He never tells us what the truth is. This last appears to be gobbledygook to me. Try as I might, I can’t make sense of it.
Because this is so, truth is of such great importance for well-being. One could say: It is completely indifferent whether the Thirty Years’ War has taken place or whether the Elbe flows between Dresden and Hamburg even when we are sleeping or standing on the Rhine. Truth about the past is existentially important because it is an understanding of the present (reality).
Punishment and truth
I mention all this to give you the idea that prosecuting for denial of the obvious truth is a problematic matter. Here we go – truth is not defined, instead it is “obvious.” Criminal law has, after all, historically worked its way from the outside to the inside, so to speak: From the control of external behavior ever closer to the control of internal self-control and thinking. Since 500 years ago, God as the only instance of truth was shifted from the real world to a transcendent beyond. The rational control of reality was taken over by everyone in the world of absolutism [being] allowed to be happy in his own way, as long as he took care of it inwardly and adhered to the 19,000 paragraphs of the General Prussian Land Law outwardly. Nowadays we see it differently: we want the citizen to guide himself morally, so criminal law also has its sights set on his thoughts and feelings the “Gesinnung” [attitude] is worth a lot to us, and anyone who shoots at a person with a wooden toy gun because he mistakenly believes it to be real will be put in prison for life for attempted murder. Is this not nuts? How do you prove what he believes? How can you punish an attitude?
In addition, however, what constitutes freedom and makes human development possible has to assert itself. Optimized mind control leads, as has been proven many times, to blatantly dysfunctional societies, no matter under which “ideological,” irrational beliefs. So it depends – once again – on a balance between conflicting conditions, circumstances, tendencies and possibilities: as much as possible alignment by controlling a common “truth” on the one hand – and on the other hand as much freedom as possible for truth-expanding realities. Such a balance requires the form and these binding concepts of oneself. Somewhat easier: one must find forms of balance.
If one looks around in the world of criminal law, one finds many legal systems in which truth is acted [?] as a high object of protection, especially gladly the truth about the greatness of one’s own state history, about the tremendous victories of the respective leaders and the wickedness of all its opponents, about the quasi-historical necessity of rule as it is and will be forever. One can believe that or not. Some feel secure in such forms, especially when they are not among the lowest, but have even more contemptible ones among them.
In states that are called liberal constitutional states, it is more complicated, but much more pleasant: one may think what one wants, but in addition to the rules of external conduct, one must understand halfway the construction itself and pay attention to the functioning of social truth-finding. In Germany, the pure doctrine of truthfulness is not enforced by the Bundeswehr, but by rule-based public communication. This is the reason why the Federal Constitutional Court describes the basic right of freedom of opinion as “absolutely constitutive”.
Therefore it is actually rather remote that one protects “the truth” criminally and pursues the spreading of lies as attack on the truth. If this were to be taken literally, it would be the very opposite of what is “absolutely constitutive.” However: The spreading of panic by public threat of attacks is punishable even if the threat is not meant seriously (see § 126 StGB); the spreading of contents with glorification of inhuman cruelty is also punishable if the victims depicted are only “human-like” (see § 131 StGB), and everyone has a right, protected by criminal law, to have slander (incorrect factual claims) that do not violate their reputation and destroy their existence, spread (see §§ 186, 187 StGB). The truth about the past is thus protected to the extent that it is the basis of present life. Exactly. In order to prevent political National Socialism from reappearing, they must lie about it and criminalize it (the past) to “protect” the future. If two sections of the population claim that it is the “truth” that different gods have ordered them to destroy each other, one must not protect the truth but prevent civil war. One way to do this would be to prohibit the public dissemination of the aforementioned feeble-minded “truths”. Now truths that don’t protect their version of public peace become “feeble-minded truths.”
§ 130 – “Incitement of the people” – protects in the end, of course, body, life, existence of humans. This protection is, however, shifted forward here, because conditions are to be prevented in which it can no longer be guaranteed by the general rules (for example, prohibition of manslaughter and bodily injury). Hate against groups of the population, calls for violence, threats to security are, as history has shown a thousand times, dangerous acts. “Incitement of the people” is a so-called abstract crime of danger, which punishes attacks on the so-called public peace, i.e. a state in which the form of compensation is based on rules and not on violence and arbitrariness.
This brings us to the denial of the Holocaust, which is a variant of the crime of sedition. Of course, one can say: Whether any fools “believe” that the Holocaust of National Socialism did not take place is completely indifferent. For the world and for the truth this is no more significant than the view of some others that the world is ruled by aliens or was founded by Martians. These latter opinions would not be insignificant, however, if their followers were to call for the earth to be prepared for the return of the masters from space and, until then, for the slaughter of the elites or the burning of all forests. In other words: The truth about the Holocaust is not the core, but the medium of public peace, which § 130 paragraph 3 StGB wants to protect. This is all utter nonsense.
So much for the background of the penal provision. It does not change anything about the fact that § 130 Abs. 3 StGB is also a completely normal criminal provision: One must, in order to be punished, [word missing?] the objective (action) and the subjective (resolution) facts of the case. And what the intent of “denial” is, is not self-evident and also not indisputable. Very important.
Some people say: intent to deny already exists when the perpetrator knows that he denies something. Others – the “prevailing opinion” – say that premeditation presupposes that the perpetrator knows that his view of past reality contradicts the view of everyone else. Still others – for example, the columnist in his StGB commentary – say: Denial in the sense of § 130 (3) presupposes that the perpetrator knows or accepts that his assertion contradicts reality, i.e., is untrue. (Only) this latter view leads to the problem that people who do not know this are in a state of so-called “error of fact”, i.e. they cannot be punished (see § 16 para. 1 StGB). This is not a practically relevant problem because 99 percent of the “deniers” of course know full well that the Holocaust really took place, but feign their “disbelief” because they actually approve (or even would like to repeat) the genocide. Shockingly untrue!! Indefensible attitude from a judge, an unsupported assumption and CHEAP SHOT that has never been fairly demonstrated in any courtroom! That such persons can be punished according to § 130 is self-evident. Then one could, under certain circumstances, leave the few idiots who really believe that the earth is a piece of paper in their sad delusion alone. It is obvious that this is not quite so simple: How do you want to distinguish the real from the delusional liars?
Punishment and symbol
This brings us to Mrs. Haverbeck and comrades, including Mr. Horst Mahler or the (probably: former) fiancée and defense attorney of the same [Sylvia Stolz], who used their pleas to announce the death penalty to the judges. What death penalty? There are simply such people, and in their shadow quite a number of them, who hide around with half-baked swollen sympathies and ostensibly agnostic excuses: they only deny secretly and among their own kind. Unwarranted insult toward Haverbeck, Mahler and Stolz; more hate from the respected judge.
The decisive point here, too, is probably that the perpetrators are not concerned with “the truth” as scientific reality: they do not spend their lives researching whether Caesar really spoke with Brutus when he murdered him, or whether Cleopatra used to bathe in milk or champagne before meeting Antonius. Her [referring to Frau Haverbeck] center of truth is hyperexcited at only one point: Holocaust or non-Holocaust? Were there six million or perhaps only 5.8 million murdered? This alone shows that it is not about numbers, but about principle: the allegedly wrong view of the general public is for these persuaders of conviction proof and symbol of the alleged “wrong” opinion about National Socialism, which they consider to be a great thing by and large. The fight for the alleged truth is thus a fight not for past reality, but for the social and political future. Agitation against the alleged lie about Auschwitz is in reality agitation against Jews, Sinti and Roma, foreigners.
There is no reason not to punish perpetrators of conviction. To have any “conviction” is allowed, pleasant or not, and first of all a private matter. But he who “by conviction” murders, humiliates, hurts other people, must be made clear the boundary between mine and his actions. But they can’t prove the necessary extent of the murder, humiliation and hurt. It’s an arbitary claim and number. At the same time the sanctioning must show the others – that is, all – that this limit exists and that it must be observed. This too is “symbolic”. One could take the view that perpetrators like Ms. Haverbeck should not be offered further stages of self-representation in court through criminal prosecution. I think that would be too cheap an argument, on the edge of convenience. After all, criminal trials and main hearings do not have the task of protecting the public from becoming aware of crimes. Even those who, as accused, announce that they will make physical attacks during the trial will not be released, but rather tied up. Admittedly, one must not do the same with notorious agitators. In exceptional cases, however, they can be excluded, otherwise one must and can bear the gossip. As long as there is still a spark of legal defense underneath, one must listen and give the accused a chance. Nothing more. This applies equally to Haverbecks, holy warriors and other human happiness seekers.
Punishment and age
Should (very) old people be prosecuted and punished, even imprisoned? This is a question that is repeatedly asked in public, but surprisingly hardly ever in the case of jealousy killers, child rapists or terrorists. But especially with old Nazi criminals who lived “blamelessly” in hiding for 70 years and who were dragged out of the hiding places of their memories at the end of their lives. One might ask whether old people in wheelchairs are still the right addressees of the messages of criminal law. Counter question: Why not?
That applies in any case to such offenders who are still criminally active even at an advanced age. Anyone who, at the age of 92 and full of zest for action, strides from one sedition to the next will probably still be sprightly enough to bear responsibility for it. An 85-year-old man, who notoriously abuses children sexually, will not be able to argue, with any prospect of success, that at his age a criminal trial is no longer worthwhile; it would be better to let it go. Always equating holocaust revisionists with sexual abusers of children! They are not similar in any way.
It may be different when it concerns deeds that are a whole human life behind. Murder and genocide do not come under the statute of limitations: that is how it is, and that is what the majority of the population obviously wants. Hardly anyone complains that it is possible to solve 50-year-old sexual murders with the help of DNA analysis: “cold cases” are considered a very special treat for the daily horror. When the love of justice and the statute of limitations is so great, one should not exclude the ramp of Auschwitz, of all places.
There are limits to the ability to negotiate and to execute. But they are very wide: not because German criminal law is so merciless and inhuman, but because the well-being of prisoners is quite well taken care of, at least in physical terms. There are many old people living in prison today, many are chronically ill, quite a few die there from cancer, cardiovascular diseases, Aids. There are departments for old prisoners, prison hospitals and, if necessary, the possibility of external medical care. One should think about the penal system as a whole, without doubt. But the majority of citizens obviously do not want that at all. To open a media-public department for “mercy” instead would seem to me to make little sense and be extremely unfair. One could think of a few prisoners who perhaps deserved mercy more than highly active hate mongers. This is how he pretends he sees Ursula, as a hate monger rather than as a constitutionally protected German citizen. This allows him to stay in his judicial comfort zone. As a rule, one cannot choose whether one dies of lung cancer. Whether one simply keeps one’s mouth shut, yes.
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So there is the legal answer to all who question the Dictate of eternal German guilt for the Holocaust: Shut up or we’ll shut you up.
Posted by Monika in Free Speech, Germany, Truth and Justice for Germans, Uncategorized, Ursula Haverbeck, WW II Revisionism
What does the state have to hide when they relentlessly persecute a 92-year-old peaceful woman who has never done anything that we normally associate with “criminal”, never did anything violent, never stolen, never vandalized, never defrauded anyone, BUT has asked an inconvenient question over and over again. This woman has just been released from jail, having spent 2&1/2 years behind bars, and less than 2 weeks later was in court in Berlin for more charges. Her name is Ursula Haverbeck. The Law is the infamous Par. 130.
This 16-minute video (in German) by the Volkslehrer (Folk Teacher) was sent my way recently by an English-only speaker, who wondered what was said. What follows is by no means a word-for-word translation, but a description giving the gist of it. I highly recommend viewing at least the first 8 minutes of the video even if you do not speak German, because it is beautifully put together especially the music and scenes at the beginning, followed by the interesting scene of reporters chumming outside the courtroom… excluding the independent journalist-reporter Nikolai Nerling the Volkslehrer – producer of this video.
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The Volkslehrer asked Ursula Haverbeck for an interview before court began, but she explained that she was not allowed to speak to anyone at this time.
Then you see the throng of reporters outside the courtroom awaiting entry, all friendly with each other, laughing and joking, until one masked woman asks “who are you?!” to Nikolai. He introduces himself, shows his press pass, explains that he has been a journalist for the last 3&1/2 years. Condescendingly, she scoffs at him, accuses him of having made up his press pass himself (effectively calling him a liar), says this is nothing, it is not from uh.. uh.. a proper organ of the press, and then natters about putting the mask on properly. He answered that it had just slipped down.
After she disappears with his press pass, she returns, again delegitimizing him by saying his press pass has not been issued by a recognized institution. She cackles about not coming too near and that his mask is slipping yet again.
He read her the Grundgesetz – the foundational law which stipulates freedom of the press, to no avail. Nikolai Nerling was NOT allowed in, and was forcibly taken out of the building.
Next, Ursula Haverbeck was in fine spirits when she came out of the building. The remainder of the video is the interview with Haverbeck’s Attorney, Wolfram Nahrath.
Nahrath tells how Ursula spoke so clearly, so honestly, with dignity, with grace, brilliantly really, and made her case in court that day. She spoke about how she came to her present understanding of what really happened in WW2. It began in the 1960’s, as she was investigating the nuclear industry on account of her concern for the environment. She read much, researched much, which led her to question the official narrative of WW2.
She emphasized that she never denies anything, but that she has repeatedly asked the question over the years, to which nobody could ever give her an answer. Nahrath referred to that famous question which she still asks, but did not describe it in this interview. [The question is “where did the crime (the 6 million…) take place?”]
Ursula went on to say that actually there is nobody in the courtroom who would be capable of denying anything, because nobody was there to witness what happened. So if they don’t know what it is that happened (because they did not see it themselves), then none of them are in the position to “deny” it either.
[It is an interesting logic, because in German the word for deny is “leugnen”, and by the German definition, you cannot “leugne” something that did not happen. It is impossible. ~ MS]
Then Nahrath went on to say that Ursula had said all these things with a clear mind and spirit, and that she demonstrated that she has no guilt-awareness or better said, no guilt feeling. In all the 10 different trials she has been through, that not a single prosecutor nor judge nor anybody could answer her question. Nor did anybody attempt to answer her question. They simply declared her guilty.
[When they declared her guilty in the past, they proclaimed that Frau Haverbeck knows the holocaust took place, and yet she denies it (leugner). So she is guilty. ~ Evidently the judges and prosecutors engage in mind-reading. ~ MS]
We will see what the verdict is on December 4th, he says. He fears it might be as previous verdicts. Then it is far from over. There is another count that she is charged with in Berlin for which the prosecutor appealed because the 6-month sentence was not deemed stiff enough. Then there are the court proceedings in Hamburg still underway in which the prosecutor asked for 10 months.
Lastly, Nahrath goes on to say that Frau Haverbeck is in no way-shape-or-form agitating to incite. She operates on an intellectual level, searching for answers. He laments the fact that they are dragging a 92 year-old through the court. He of course makes the point that this Par. 130 should not exist at all, but really emphasizes how terrible it is that they drag an elderly woman through this. He talks about how at this age her health could take a turn at any time, and also that if she goes back to jail after these legal battles, there is naturally the possibility that she could be brought back out under a sheet directly to her grave. The fact that she is willing to seek answers at the age of 92, in full knowledge of the personal consequences — it rings forth – yeah – respect!
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Nahrath’s emotions could be felt coming close to the surface when he said those things. The whole affair is such a travesty. But if they do put Ursula Haverbeck back in jail, do they not just show their desperation to protect their lies? Evidence is forbidden. Independent reportage is forbidden. They read the accused’s mind to say she KNOWS something only to deny it with the intention to incite hatred. How absurd.
How is it not blatantly obvious to every thinking man and woman?
The house of cards is tumbling down!