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ISSN 1440-9828
February 2007
No 315The Holocaust-Shoah Story and related matters
Fredrick Töben
South Australia is known for being a state of dissent and Adelaide’s founder, Colonel William Light, whose image graces Adelaide Institute’s logo, led the way when he designed this beautifully functional parklands city of churches. In what other capital city can you reach another point at the extremities within an hour by driving directly through the city? Where else can you experience peak-hour traffic at the most for one hour mornings and nights?
Colonel Light did not care what his contemporaries thought of his work because he knew that only the test of time would vindicate his decision to plan the city in the way he did.
In an extract from the Preface of Light's 1839 Brief Journal he himself expressed it thus:
“The reason that led me to fix Adelaide where it is I do not expect to be generally understood or calmly judged of at present. My enemies, however, by disputing their validity in every particular, have done me the good service of fixing the whole of the responsibility upon me. I am perfectly willing to bear it; and I leave it to posterity and not to them, to decide whether I am entitled to praise or to blame!”
This leads me to reflect on three specific South Australian matters that currently continue to move world politics: 1. The David Hicks case, the alleged Australian ‘terrorist’ who has now been held at Guantanamo Bay for over five years without being charged; 2. The first legal test case of the ‘HIV=AIDS’ hypothesis that began in November 2006 just as I departed for the ‘Holocaust’ conference in Teheran, Iran, and 3. my own refusal to believe in the ‘Holocaust-Shoah’ that has again activated Zionist Jeremy Jones to begin on 5 December 2006 a Federal Court of Australia, FCA, action against me. My absence from Australia on that day meant that on 6 February 2007 I attended the FCA at Adelaide and participated in a video link-up from Sydney where Justice Moore agreed to hear Jones’ Notice of Motion some time in May, this being the month during which my legal counsel can at the earliest mount a defence.
My matter, of course, has become more relevant within a global context when on 15 February 2007 the German judges at Mannheim handed down a five-year sentence to veteran Revisionist Ernst Zündel for refusing to believe in the ‘Holocaust-Shoah’. The outright gloating of ‘Holocaust-Shoah’ believers was sickening to behold, and was indeed a sign of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy facing western cultural values where TRUTH has become irrelevant, and where a hurt feeling need not be proven. No wonder that we welcome the renaissance impulses emanating from Iran’s president, Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has shaken the western world by refusing to bow to Jewish pressure to cancel the 10-12 December 2006 International Holocaust Conference. The president put it succinctly by stating that in the west we can doubt anything, even the existence of God, but we dare not doubt the ‘Holocaust-Shoah’. The massive uproar coming from so-called western liberal democracies against the holding of this conference that merely aimed to review the ‘Holocaust-Shoah’ spoke volumes. Factual arguments were thrown out the window and the predictable entourage of western politicians heaped insults on the Iranian president. This merely indicates the moribund nature of the ‘failed states’ within western society
Of course, the overarching concept that currently links everything to a global refrain is the attempt by the President George W Bush-led Anglo-American-Zionist’s to keep the post-World-War-Two Order together by whatever means. Adelaide resident Robert Potter, Morphettville, put it succinctly: All Bush is saying is “…give war a chance”. Advertiser, 26/2.
The following newsletters will show how vibrant and essential Revisionism remains to those who care to understand our human condition, who have developed a Weltanschauung, a world view that will help to clarify for us what it means to be a Mensch!
DW - Crime | 15.02.2007
German Neo-Nazi Gets Five Years for Holocaust Denial
Zündel will now spend five years in jail but will not renounce his ideas
A German court on Thursday sentenced a prominent Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel to five years in prison for inciting racial hatred and denying that the Nazis killed millions of Jews.
Judges in the south-western city of Mannheim gave the 67-year-old the maximum sentence under German law after finding that Zündel had repeatedly denied the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis in World War II.
It said it had counted 14 instances on Zündel's Internet homepage where he denied the historical facts of the Holocaust and incited anti-Semitism.
Zündel wrote a book titled "The Hitler We Loved and Why," described the Nazi leader as a "man of peace" and helped to disseminate a range of anti-Semitic literature.
He lived in Canada for several decades and fell foul of authorities there for his anti-Semitic opinions. He was extradited to Germany in 2005.
His trial was marked by upheaval after one of his five lawyers had to be replaced after questioning the Holocaust in arguments in his client's defense.
In his closing remarks, Zündel had called on the court to establish an international commission of experts to examine the Holocaust. He added that he would apologize to Jews and other victims if the commission confirmed that Jews had been gassed.
The German government, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, is trying to convince all other member states of the bloc to make denying the Holocaust an EU-wide crime.
DW staff (win) Compiled by DW staff (kjb) | www.dw-world.de | © Deutsche Welle.
Readers React to Five-Year Sentence For Holocaust Denier
1. What a terrible case of justice denied. Never ever have I felt hate incited while reading Zündel's Website or became inspired to anti-Semitism. I really had hoped Germany was freer by now. - Traute Kalbfleish, California, US
2. The German judicial institutions can be proud of their court system. The sentence of Zündel is, if anything, lenient, but just. - Colonel Werner Michel, US Army (retired)
3. I am saddened to see a man punished for expressing his convictions. - Geoff Beck
4. How is this possible in a democratic government? - Marianne Bouvier
5. What a joke. What happened to freedom of speech? - Paul Forster
6. This is not a just punishment. Counting his time in prison in Canada and in Germany before the sentence, he will only serve nine years in prison. That is not enough for denying the Holocaust. Zündel might still be alive five years from now, in which case he will be out of prison and still denying the Holocaust. He should have gotten life without parole -- in solitary confinement with no visitors allowed. - Gen Baugher
7. We should all sing that beautiful and ancient German song more often: "Die Gedanken sind frei" ("Thoughts are Free"). - Reiner Clode
8. It is shocking that free speech does not exist in Germany. Zündel should be allowed to freely express his views about historical events. He is not advocating violence, and he is not a terrorist. This man should be free. - Scott Barnes
9. This topic is emotional for most Germans and this is why people such as Zündel are not tolerated for their opinions. Frankly, freedom of expression means a commitment to allow people to express their views as long as these views don't express hate or threaten any group. If Zündel has expressed doubt at the number of people killed during the Nazi Holocaust, then I consider this verdict of five years imprisonment too harsh. However, if he has directly incited hate and threatened Jews the verdict could be understandable. This verdict could also challenge the existing parameters of freedom of expressions. - Atilla A. Iftikhar
10. How can you possibly believe that this is justice? The man is 67 years old. Why must people who think differently go to jail? What is being hidden? - Sheila Fox
11. It is sad to see how the German people remain morally and intellectually bankrupt, so much so that they will continue to subject themselves to one of history's greatest lies, i.e. that Germany systematically exterminated European Jewry in homicidal gas chambers.
Ernst Zündel is one of the few brave men who dare stand against such an odious lie that continues to defame the whole nation.
A basic factual analysis of this most vile allegation soon proves that such event could not have happened - see my talk: THE ‘HOLOCAUST-Shoah’ in TIME & SPACE, not MEMORY. The Alleged Murder Weapon: Homicidal Gas Chambers - The Logistics Problem: UNDRESS-GAS-BURN:
http://www.adelaideinstitute.org/2006December/FT_talk.htm
Is it not time now for Deutsche Welle to grasp the nettle and press for a free and open examination of the physical factuality of the 'Holocaust-Shoah' without its personnel fearing prison?
After all, with the continuing tragedy suffered by the peoples of the Middle East, is it not now time to bring down the post-World-War-II Order that international predatory capitalism has imposed on the world via this 'Holocaust-Shoah industry'?
Is it also not now time to disbanden the Zionist, racist entity of Israel and liberate the Palestinians and others who continue to suffer at the hands of the Anglo-American-Zionist exploitation?
Germans could have a leading role to play in this major enterprise because they know from first hand experience what it is like to be subjected for sixty-odd years to this ungodly exploitative evil force that permits them to suicide in hedonistic consumerism where there is only the freedom to go shopping and the freedom to self-destruct!
Dr Fredrick Töben
http://www.dw-world.de/popups/popup_sendfeedback/0,,7882_group_0,00.html
Category: Politics
Date: Saturday, February 17, 2007
German court sentences Ernst Zündel to 5 years in prison for Holocaust denial
MANNHEIM, Germany (CP) - Far-right activist Ernst Zündel was convicted of 14 counts of incitement Thursday for Holocaust denial and sentenced to the maximum five years in prison, a sentence quickly applauded by Canadian Jewish groups.
"I think that they've given a strong message . . . to the world, that I believe will bring a tremendous amount of comfort to Holocaust survivors," said Bernie Farber, chief executive officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress.
"I think a lot of us can take a very deep breath and move on to other things - other than thinking of Ernst Zündel anymore," Farber said in a telephone interview with The Canadian Press.
Zündel, 67, who was deported from Canada in 2005, was accused of years of anti-Semitic activities, including denying the Holocaust - a crime in Germany - in documents and on the Internet.
Zündel and his supporters have argued that he is a peaceful campaigner who has been denied his right to free speech.
Zündel has been a prominent white supremacist and Holocaust denier since the 1970s. Among other ventures, he ran Samisdat Publishers, a leading distributor of Nazi propaganda based in Canada. He also provided content to The Zündelsite website, which has followers around the world, hundreds of whom have protested his detention.
Zündel was born in Germany in 1939. He immigrated to Canada in 1958 and lived in Toronto and Montreal until 2001. Canadian officials rejected his attempts to obtain citizenship in 1966 and 1994.
He then moved to Tennessee, where he married fellow extremist Ingrid Rimland, but was deported to Canada in 2003 for alleged immigration violations.
Upon arrival in Toronto, Zündel was arrested and held in detention until a judge ruled in March 2005 that his activities posed a threat to national and international security, and he was deported to Germany.
Zündel has been standing trial in Germany since November of last year in what were, at times, raucous proceedings.
The initial attempt to try him collapsed last March over a dispute with one of his lawyers, Sylvia Stolz. At one stage she had to be carried from the courtroom, screaming "Resistance! The German people are rising up," after defying an order banning her from the trial on grounds she tried to sabotage the proceedings by denouncing the court as a "tool of foreign domination."
In the current trial, defence lawyer Ludwig Bock quoted from Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and from Nazi race laws in his closing statements last week as argued for Zündel's acquittal.
Bock accused the Mannheim state court of not wanting to face a "scientific analysis" of the Holocaust and alleged that prosecutors - one of whom has termed Zündel a "rat catcher" - had defamed his client.
Another of Zündel's five lawyers, Herbert Schaller, told the court that all of its evidence that the Holocaust took place was based only on witness reports, instead of hard facts.
In his own closing arguments, prosecutor Andreas Grossmann called Zündel a "political con man" from whom the German people must be protected.
Grossmann quoted widely from his Zündel's, which argue that millions of Jews did not die at the hands of the Nazis. "You might as well argue that the sun rises in the west," Grossmann said when asking that Zündel be given the maximum sentence. "But you cannot change that the Holocaust has been proven."
Rechtsextremismus
Höchststrafe für Holocaust-Leugner, 15. Februar 2007
Zündel bei der Urteilsverkündung
Wegen der Leugnung des Holocausts ist der Neonazi Ernst Zündel zu fünf Jahren Haft verurteilt worden. Das Landgericht Mannheim befand den 67-Jährigen am Donnerstag der Volksverhetzung in 14 Fällen für schuldig. Zündel hatte den millionenfachen Mord an Juden in deutschen Gaskammern als Geschichtsfälschung bezeichnet sowie in Rundbriefen und im Internet rechtsextremistische Propaganda verbreitet.
Hinter der Fassade des „biederen Schwaben“ sei Zündel „ein gefährlicher politischer Agitator, ein Hetzer und Brandredner. Das ist seine zweite Natur“, sagte der Vorsitzende Richter Ulrich Meinerzhagen in der Urteilsbegründung. „Man meint, einen geistig Verwandten des Autors von „Mein Kampf“ vor sich zu haben.“ Zündel sei ein „extremer Antisemit“ und „überzeugter Nationalsozialist“. In seinen Schriften zeige sich ein „abgrundtiefer Hass auf alles Jüdische“, sagte Meinerzhagen. „Zündel strebt eine Rückkehr in das faschistische Staatswesen an.“ Der Angeklagte habe „schändliche und schwer erträgliche Behauptungen“ verbreitet und damit den öffentlichen Frieden gefährdet. Der Richter warnte besonders vor Zündels Internetseite. Der Angeklagte habe sich häufig mit einem praktisch unbegrenzten Besucherkreis für seine Homepage gebrüstet: „Darin liegt die besondere Gefährlichkeit dieses Mediums.“
Die Staatsanwaltschaft hatte wegen Volksverhetzung die Höchststrafe von fünf Jahren Haft gefordert, die Verteidigung Freispruch. Zündel wird vorgeworfen, von Kanada und den Vereinigten Staaten aus über seine Internet-Homepage und mit Hilfe von Rundbriefen die Auschwitz-Lüge verbreitet zu haben, bei der der Massenmord an den Juden im Nationalsozialismus geleugnet wird.
Seit 2005 in Untersuchungshaft
In seinem Schlusswort äußerte sich Zündel nicht zu den Vorwürfen. Er forderte aber das Landgericht auf, eine „internationale unabhängige Gutachterkommission“ zur Untersuchung des Holocaust einzusetzen. Falls diese ihn widerlege, werde er sich „in einer Pressekonferenz öffentlich bei Juden, Israelis und der Welt entschuldigen“, sagte er.
Nach seiner Ausweisung aus Kanada sitzt Zündel seit März 2005 in Deutschland in Untersuchungshaft. Zuvor war er bereits rund zwei Jahre in Kanada inhaftiert. Die Verteidigung hatte in dem ein Jahr dauernden Prozess gefordert, das Leugnen des Holocaust nicht länger unter Strafe zu stellen. „Hätte es dieses Verfahren nicht gegeben, hätten die Rechten einmal weniger Gelegenheit gehabt, sich Gehör zu verschaffen“, sagte Rechtsanwalt Hans Ulrich Beust.
Text: AP. Bildmaterial: dpa
http://www.faz.net/s/Rub28FC768942F34C5B8297CC6E16FFC8B4/Doc~E39E9AC8A2B464E94A77750F12D537DC2
Web-exclusive comment
Zundel down, Ahmadinejad to go
Special to Globe and Mail Update, 16 February 2007
Yesterday's decision of the German court in Mannheim, sentencing Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel to a five-year prison term on 14 counts of incitement, looks like the final knockout punch in a lengthy brawl between him and the legal systems of Canada and Germany. If only Holocaust denial itself were down for the count.
This country's Jewish community certainly cheers the decision, as it did the Canadian Human Rights tribunal ruling shutting down Ernst Zündel's website in January 2002. In both cases the message was clear: Holocaust denial is a pernicious form of anti-Semitism that nourishes the fantasies of conspiracists and is designed to excite feelings of hatred and contempt against members of the Jewish community. We are well rid of him. And if in prison he becomes a tragic or a romantic figure for those who espouse his views, that is a small price to pay. His incarceration is a cautionary message to those who would emulate his activities. The freedom of speech that all democratic societies cherish cannot be exploited by the Zündel's of this world to foment hate.
In December 2006, the world had the opportunity to see the full flowering of Ernst Zündel's philosophy. In Iran we had the spectacle of a head of state sponsoring a conference dedicated to the expression of Holocaust denial. From around the world came men and women who, provided with a forum for their views, caressed each other with the soothing balm of anti-Semitism.
The German sociologist, Theodor Adorno, once defined anti-Semitism as a "rumour about the Jews." Since the concept of "The Jew" who is the subject of the anti-Semite's malice exists only in his mind, all manner of contradictions are made possible. The "Jew" can be capitalist and communist; tool of the establishment and revolutionary; filthy in his poverty and disgusting in his bloated wealth. The "Jew," in short, becomes the answer to every question. But such a creature does not exist. He is a figment, a chimera.
The conspiracy theory that drives the notion of Holocaust denial is clear. If the Holocaust never happened then the Jews made it up for their own reasons. And what can be said about a group that would attempt to foist such a deception on a gullible world? They are untrustworthy. Manipulative. Capable of anything. That in itself would be sufficient, but there is more going on than that. Holocaust denial represents simultaneously a desire to disinter and torment Holocaust victims anew, and a desire to complete the genocidal project by making the Jews and their state a despised target.
It is no accident or coincidence that Holocaust deniers received a warm welcome from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Indeed Ernst Zündel's dream of legitimizing Holocaust denial is lived through this Iranian demagogue. As Iran's nuclear program advances, his pronouncements that Israel will be wiped from the pages of history provide a chilling echo from the past. It is too easy to dismiss him as a comical figure, one who plays with the media for his own amusement, but we must remember that Hitler, too, was seen as a buffoon who could be easily manipulated, or who would be tempered by discipline of power. That miscalculation cost the lives of more than 50 million men, women and children. That mistake cannot be repeated.
President Ahmadinejad holds the smoky fantasy of the malevolent Jew in his mind, translating the fallacy into international politics. Israel has invented the Holocaust, has used it as a tool for controlling governments in the West, and has deployed it as a means of tormenting the Palestinians. And if you don't believe him, he has gathered a whole cast of outcasts — from Klan leaders posing as academics to psychopaths posing as rabbis — to back him up.
Ernst Zündel represents only one chapter in the thick and heavy book of anti-Semitism. It seems at times that the book is being written as we read it. The page turns and the acid pen of hate scrawls on ahead of us.
Ed Morgan is a law professor at the University of Toronto and national president of Canadian Jewish Congress. Bernie Farber is chief executive of the CJC.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070216.wcomment0216/BNStory/International/home
THIS TIME LAST YEAR:
Zündel-Prozeß - Der Müll, die Stadt und das Fräulein Stolz
Von Volker Zastrow, Mannheim, 21. Februar 2006
Ernst Zündel: Militärischer Gruß im Gerichtssaal
Der Wind hat den Überschuß der Abfallkörbe auf Gehwegen und Grünstreifen verteilt. Das kanadische Fernsehteam, das die Stadt zum ersten Mal sieht und nichts vom Streik im öffentlichen Dienst weiß, muß Mannheim für die Metropole des Mülls halten. An den Häusern lagern Haufen gelber und hellblauer Säcke. Kalter Regen zeichnet das Bild weich.
Die Kanadier sind gekommen, um den Prozeß gegen Ernst Zündel zu beobachten. Zündel ist Schwabe, Sohn eines Holzfällers aus Calmbach im Schwarzwald, dort kam er im April 1939 zur Welt. 1958 wanderte er nach Toronto aus, laut Selbstauskunft aus „Seelennot wegen des herannahenden Waffen- und Militärdienstes“. In der Neuen Welt hat er sich dann zu einer Schlüsselfigur der „Revisionisten“ entwickelt. Ihr Credo ist die Leugnung des Holocausts, die in Deutschland unter Strafe steht.
Beifall vom Publikum
Weil Zündel seine Botschaft auch hierzulande verbreitet, seit 1994 nicht zuletzt im Internet, ist in Mannheim auf Betreiben des inzwischen pensionierten Staatsanwalts Klein Haftbefehl gegen ihn ergangen. Die Freiheit der Rede genießt in der angelsächsischen Rechtstradition höheren Rang als in der kontinentaleuropäischen, dennoch war der fanatische Judenhasser Zündel auch in Kanada in mehrere Prozesse verwickelt.
Trotz Begehrens konnte er die kanadische Staatsbürgerschaft nie erlangen. Seit Februar 2003 saß er in Sicherungs- und Abschiebehaft. Vor einem Jahr wurde Zündel, der sich selbst ein „Geschenk an die Welt“ nennt, als unerwünschte Person aus Kanada ausgewiesen und am 1. März nach Deutschland abgeschoben.
Als der kleine Mann in verwaschenen Jeans, hellblauem Hemd und gestreifter Krawatte vom Vollzugsbeamten in den fensterlosen Schwurgerichtssaal geführt wird, empfängt ihn das Publikum mit Beifall. Gut achtzig seiner Anhänger sind gekommen.
Die mittlere Generation fehlt
Etwa die Hälfte von ihnen ist im Rentenalter, Dreißiger- und Vierziger-Jahrgänge: Männer in weichen Schuhen und in Pullovern, die nicht aus der Mode kommen können, weil sie nie darin waren. Auch Frauen sind da, im selben Alter, mit mehr Aufwand zum selben Ergebnis gestaltet. Außerdem einige geschmackvoll gekleidete Damen mit weißen Haar, zurückgebürstet und im Nacken zusammengefaßt, mit ungeschminkten Gesichtern und lebhaften Augen.
Sie haben in ihrer Jugend bestimmt Else Urys „Nesthäkchen“-Romane gelesen, in denen das reformierte Weiblichkeitsideal natürlicher Frische ausgestaltet wurde. Die eine oder andere ist anderweitig ebenfalls wegen Volksverhetzung angeklagt.
Dasselbe gilt für die jungen Männer mit den auffallend kurzen Haaren im Publikum. Die meisten kommen aus dem Osten, wie die Sprachfärbung verrät. Die mittlere Generation fehlt, sie hat ihren Teil des Generationenvertrags zu erfüllen, auch heute, am zweiten Verhandlungstag.
Unterbrechung in Schwarz und Violett
Der Anlauf des Verfahrens liegt Monate zurück, er endete am 9. November mit der Entpflichtung der Verteidigerin Sylvia Stolz durch das Gericht. Außerdem strengte der Staatsanwalt Großmann wegen ihrer Ausführungen gegen sie ein Ermittlungsverfahren wegen Volksverhetzung an. Ein anderes ist in Lüneburg anhängig.
Inzwischen ist „Fräulein Stolz“, wie sie von ihren Verehrern genannt wird, zusammen mit Jürgen Rieger und dem greisen Dr. Herbert Schaller aus Wien Zündels dritte Wahlverteidigerin. Unentwegt fällt sie dem Vorsitzenden ins Wort. Kaum hat er ein, zwei oder drei Sätze hinter sich gebracht, erklingt schon ihr „Herr Meinerzhagen“. Dahinter steckt kein Mangel an Selbstbeherrschung: Fräulein Stolz kämpft um die Herrschaft über den Adrenalinspiegel des Vorsitzenden. Fähnchen um Fähnchen setzt sie in ihre Feldzugskarte, und jedes Fähnchen ist ein Nadelstich.
Fräulein Stolz ist Anfang Vierzig, aber sie hat sich einen mädchenhaften Körper erhalten und betont das, sofern sie nicht die Robe trägt, mit einem hautengen Strickkleid. Sie wiegt bestimmt keine fünfzig Kilo. Zum kleinen Schwarzen trägt sie schwarze Strümpfe, schwarze Schnallenschuhe im Rokokostil und einen mit kräftigen Violettönen spielenden Seidenschal, vom gleichen Violett wie die Reichsflagge unter dem Reichsadler auf ihrem Briefkopf - der Tintenstrahldrucker hat das Rot zum Weiß und Schwarz nicht hinbekommen.
Salbungsvoller Schulmädchenton
Darunter steht: „In Geschäftsführung ohne Auftrag für das Deutsche Reich“. Mit dunklem, zurückgeföntem Haar und dem blauen Lidschatten erinnert Fräulein Stolz freilich eher an modebewußte Avon-Beraterinnen der späten Sechziger. Sie kommt aus Ebersberg bei München, ihre Sprache ist kräftig bayerisch akzentuiert, doch die Stimme wiederum mädchenhaft hell. Mit diesem Diskant dringt sie durch.
Immer wieder wird Meinerzhagen damit aus dem Konzept gestochen, besonders auch beim Diktieren von Protokollvermerken, wo - schmerzliche Eigenart der deutschen Sprache - der Zusammenhang zwischen Satzanfang und -ende unterwegs allzu leicht verlorengeht. Dem Vorsitzenden platzt der Kragen, Fräulein Stolz säuselt über Lautsprecher: „Herr Meinerzhagen, warum müssen Sie schon wieder herumschreien? Haben Sie das nötig.“
Es gelingt ihr, nie die Stimme zu heben, während sie unterbricht. Es soll unschuldig wirken. Der Vorsitzende bekommt sein Rot gut hin, auf dem Gesicht. „Ich heiße Dr. Meinerzhagen.“ Er wünsche, von der Verteidigung hier nicht als Privatperson angesprochen zu werden. „Ich bin der Vorsitzende der Kammer und leite diese Verhandlung.“ - „Herr Meinerzhagen...“ - „Dr. Meinerzhagen!“ - „Wünschen Sie, daß ich Sie mit ihrem Doktortitel anspreche?“ - „Ich heiße Dr. Meinerzhagen und werde mit Herr Vorsitzender angesprochen.“ - „Herr Meinerzhagen, ich nehme es zur Kenntnis. Ich rede Sie mit Ihrem Namen an. Dabei bleibt es.“ In salbungsvollem Schulmädchenton.
Gefühlstemperatur erreicht Höchstgrade
Niemand läßt sich gerne ins Wort fallen, ob mit Pauken oder Schalmeien. Der Vorsitzende hat darüber hinaus die Verhandlung zu leiten. Er ist, nach langen Jahren im Beruf und nicht mehr ewig von der Pensionsgrenze entfernt, daran gewöhnt, daß man ihn läßt. Fräulein Stolz hat nicht die Absicht. Ihr ist egal, ob der Richter sie mag oder ihren Mandanten.
Mit dessen Verurteilung rechnen alle fest - ob nun „zu vier, fünf oder sechs Jahren“, wie Günter Deckert sagt, der ehemalige NPD-Vorsitzende, der inmitten der Zuschauer sitzt. Auch er war schon wegen Volksverhetzung im Gefängnis. 1988 wurde er aus dem Landesdienst entlassen, legt aber vor dem kanadischen Reporter weiterhin Wert auf seine frühere Amtsbezeichnung: „Ober-Studien-Rat: that is the highest degree for teachers“.
Die Gefühlstemperatur im Saal hat ebenfalls Höchstgrade erreicht. Der Vorsitzende vernimmt drei Männer ein, die am zweiten Verhandlungstag, nach Schluß der Sitzung, die erste Strophe der Nationalhymne gesungen hatten.
Armes Deutschland
Der älteste der drei ist der 39 Jahre alte Handwerker Dirk Reinecke, er blickt als Angeklagter auf einschlägige Verfahren in Potsdam und Bernau zurück, auch ihn hat Fräulein Stolz verteidigt. Jetzt spricht er flammende Sätze. Die beiden jüngeren, Kevin K. und Silvio M., ebenfalls aus den neuen Ländern, kommen da nicht ganz mit und kargen mit Worten: „Ich schließe mich dem an. Und, äh, ja.“
Das Gericht verhängt für jeden 200 Euro Ordnungsgeld. Reinecke höhnt, er fühle sich geehrt, von diesem Richter verurteilt zu werden. „So etwas hätte ich von einem deutschen Gericht nicht erwartet“, ruft jemand. „Es handelt sich hier ganz offensichtlich nicht um ein deutsches Gericht“, erwidert Fräulein Stolz. Einer aus dem Publikum brüllt: „Freisler!“ Der Staatsanwalt erhebt sich: „Wer hat hier Freisler gerufen? Meld dich mal, Feigling.“
Fräulein Stolz weist mit dem Finger auf den Staatsanwalt: „Sie sind der Feigling.“ Der Feigling aus dem Publikum hat sich gemeldet, er war insofern doch keiner oder ahnt nicht, was ihn erwartet: vier Tage Ordnungshaft, sofortiger Vollzug. Die Polizei - das Landgericht wird in drei konzentrischen Ringen von Einsatzkräften gesichert - führt den Mann ab. „Armes Deutschland“, sagt Fräulein Stolz. Ihr Mentor, der mit Berufsverbot belegte Rechtsanwalt Horst Mahler, faltet die Hände über dem Bauch und lächelt fein.
Text: F.A.Z., 21.02.2006. Bildmaterial: picture-alliance/ dpa/dpaweb
http://www.faz.net/s/RubFC06D389EE76479E9E76425072B196C3/Doc~E2756122422D74697AE82E070E15BBB64
EU divided over German bid to ban Holocaust denial
15/Feb/2007, www.ejpress.org/article/14194
BRUSSELS (AFP-EJP)--- European Union countries remained divided Thursday over a German initiative to make Holocaust denial and incitement to racial hatred a crime.
"The positions have not really changed. Germany has got into in a very difficult undertaking," one diplomat said, on condition of anonymity, on the sidelines of talks between EU justice ministers in Brussels. The divisions are above all cultural ones aligning mainly Britain, Ireland and Scandinavian countries, who staunchly defend freedom of expression protected under their laws, against countries which already punish such crimes.
German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries, whose country holds the EU’s six-month rotating presidency until the end of June, wants to outlaw the denial of the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators in World War II before its term at the helm runs out. But similar efforts to pass such measures broke down in 2005.
Under the text being debated, EU countries would set jail terms of at least three years for "publicly inciting ... violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin." It would also apply to people "publicly condoning, denying, or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes" as defined in the statutes of the International Criminal Court.
Germany’s case has notably run into trouble in Italy, where the government has published a draft law which proposes penalties of up to three years in jail for inciting racial hatred, but stops short of making Holocaust denial a crime.
Latvia’s parliament said Wednesday that it supports the German text but also wants it to include a clause condemning crimes committed by totalitarian regimes.
Previous attempt
A previous attempt in 2005 to draft common rules failed after Italy blocked a deal on the standards that would define racism and set out common aims to tackle it.
Britain, Denmark and Hungary also voiced concern that criminalizing use of symbols like the swastika could curb freedom of expression.
Slovakia, Lithuania and other eastern European members also have called for communist symbols such as the hammer and sickle to be included in the plan, but EU diplomats said no decision on that request has yet been made.
Franco Frattini, the European Commissioner for justice and interior affairs has recently appealed to EU governments to compromise.
He has backed jail terms for "concrete incitement" of racism and hatred, but said the rules should leave it up to member states to decide what type of racist incidents would constitute a punishable crime.
Several EU member states already ban denial of the Holocaust, including Germany, France, Spain, Austria and Belgium. The use of Nazi insignia is forbidden in Germany, where Holocaust denial was already made a crime in 1985.
Sunday Telegraph, London
Japan freezes assets related to Iran
TOKYO (AP) -- The Japanese government has decided to freeze the assets of 10 groups and 12 individuals related to Iran's nuclear and missile programs, under a UN sanction resolution approved in December.
"We must execute the measures with a determined will and resolve because (the Iranian nuclear problem) affects the nuclear non-proliferation regime and North Korea's nuclear problem," Foreign Minister Taro Aso told reporters after the cabinet approved the measures.
The Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also decided to ban transfer of funds in connection with Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The measures will become effective today.
Japan, despite being a close U.S. ally, has maintained close trade ties with Iran. Asia's largest economy is almost entirely dependent on the Middle East for its oil, and imports about 15 percent of its total oil consumption from Iran.
Last year, the UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution imposing sanctions that target Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Jews are a detriment to Europe, Polish politician says in new book
By Dinah A. Spritzer, February 15, 2007, JTA
PRAGUE (JTA) — A Polish member of the European Parliament has published a booklet suggesting that Jews are unethical, are obsessed with separateness and are a “tragic community” because they don’t accept Jesus as the messiah. The extreme right-wing parliamentarian Maciej Giertych, an influential member of the nationalistic, Catholic-based League of Polish Families, released “Civilization at War in Europe” on Feb. 14 at the European Parliament headquarters in Strasbourg. Giertych’s son, Roman, Poland’s education minister and deputy prime minister, now heads the league, which has been battling the stain of anti-Semitism for years.
The 32-page booklet by the elder Giertych aims to prove that European culture, education and morality should be the province of only one civilization. Poland and other parts of Europe are depicted as having a Catholic core which cannot coexist with what he depicts as the Jews’ Torah-based civilization.
After reading the booklet on Giertych’s Web site, www.giertych.pl, the executive director of the European Jewish Congress said his organization will investigate the legality of the publication.
“It is quite amazing that a member of the European Parliament referred to racial theories of the pre-World War II era reflecting empty prejudices and the ugliest anti-Semitic cliches,” Serge Cwajgenbaum said. He also called upon the younger Giertych to renounce his father’s work.
Maciej Giertych, a professor of biology at the Polish Academy of Sciences, writes of Jews, “It is a civilization of programmed separateness, of programmed differentiation from the surrounding communities...By their own will, they prefer to live a separate life, in apartheid from the surrounding communities. They form their own communes (kahals), they govern themselves by their own rule and they take care to maintain also a spatial separateness. They form the ghettos themselves, as districts in which they live together, comparable to the Chinatowns in the USA.”
The elder Giertych told JTA that the booklet represents not his thoughts but the philosophy of Polish historian and philosopher Feliks Koneczny, a 1930s-era philosopher who some accused of anti-Semitism.“I am promoting the teachings. They are very good ideas, and they should be followed,” Giertych said. “I subscribe to his methods.”
Asked if Koneczny’s views weren’t discriminatory and outdated, Giertych said that even though they were written before the State of Israel’s birth, they address an issue that hasn’t changed for centuries and that pertains to various civilizations “like the Chinese and many others, not just the Jews.”
Rafal Pankowski of Never Again, a Polish anti-racism organization, noted that Giertych for decades has championed the philosophy of Koneczny, who suggested that Jews and Catholics could not live in the same country because Jews were lawless and immoral.
Pankowski said Giertych was only repeating what was a core philosophy of the League of Polish Families, a junior partner in the Polish government’s fragile three-party coalition. “This book is consistent with his previous writings, as disappointing as that may be,” said Pankowski, who noted that the father-and-son team was under fire for recently denying the existence of evolution.
The League of Polish Families is a post-1989 revival of Endejca, the early-20th century party that used violence in an attempt to reduce the Jewish presence at universities. Some of the league’s admirers have a neo-Nazi past.
One of the 1930s stereotypes revived by Giertych, who also was inspired by Endejca leader Roman Dmowski, is that of Jews as greedy conspirators. “They settle among other civilizations, preferably among the rich,” the book says of Jews, paraphrasing Koneczny. “They tend to migrate from poorer to richer lands. They do so always as a group, immediately forming their own separate community.”
Another section addresses the age-old stereotype that Jews use the Torah, Talmud and other commentaries hypocritically to produce ethical rules of convenience, allowing for “a constant casuistry, multiplying exceptions to immutable rules.”
Giertych warns of the influence of this philosophy on Latin civilizations, meaning Christian Europe. But he denies suggesting that Europe’s values are Christian values.
“I am saying that we in Europe make our laws according to ethics, not the Torah,” Giertych said. Asked how he thought Israelis made their laws, he responded, “the Torah.”
Piotr Kadlcik, president of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland, said that rather than finding anything directly anti-Semitic in Giertych’s book, instead it was full of “dangerous thoughts that could elicit anti-Semitism.”
He added dryly, “there is no mention of making matzahs out of Christian blood,” a reference to medieval blood libels against Jews.
Giertych’s book was issued only a month after the formation of a new far-right European Parliament grouping that includes members from parties with a history of anti-Semitism in France, Austria, Romania and Bulgaria. None of those parties, however, has members sitting in a country’s governing coalition. “It is not acceptable for such views to be expressed by a member of the European Parliament,” Pankowski said. “The sadder thing is that such people have a role in running” Poland.
©-free 2007 Adelaide Institute
