Horst Mahler - Recent Activities and New Conviction

Recent Activities and New Conviction

Mahler was involved in founding the Society for the Rehabilitation of Those persecuted for Refutation of the Holocaust (Verein zur Rehabilitierung der wegen Bestreitens des Holocaust Verfolgten or VRBHV) on 9 November 2003, or Schicksalstag. Mahler announced the society with an open letter in which he stated that the objective of the group was "to eliminate the isolation of the persecuted which has dominated so far, is to guarantee the necessary public awareness of their struggle for justice, and is to provide the financial means for a successful judicial struggle."

Mahler has faced numerous charges in German courts. In 2003 he was also charged with Volksverhetzung in connection with statements he made regarding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States -- he told the court that the incident was a concocted conspiracy and "it is not true that al-Qaeda had anything to do with it." He was also charged for Holocaust denial under the Volksverhetzung law in 2004 in connection with his role in the VRBHV. In 2006 his passport was revoked by the German authorities to prevent him from attending the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran, Iran, a conference identified with Holocaust denial.

As of November 2007, Mahler was facing new charges for Volksverhetzung. The charges stem from an interview for Vanity Fair with Michel Friedman (CDU), former vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. Friedman, who intended to interview Mahler about his role in the RAF, brought charges against Mahler alleging that he was greeted with a Hitler salute and a shout of "Heil Hitler, Herr Friedman!". During the interview, Mahler told Friedman that "the systematic extermination of Jews in Auschwitz is a lie", and that Adolf Hitler was "the savior of the German people not only of the German people.”

On November 23, 2007, the Amtsgericht Cottbus sentenced Mahler to six months of imprisonment without parole for having according to his own claims "ironically" performed the Hitler salute when reporting to prison for a nine-month term a year earlier.

On February 21, 2009 Mahler was sentenced to six years imprisonment, without possibility at reduction or bail, by a Munich court of justice; during the verdict, the judge said that Mahler had proven "not able to be re-educated" and declared that he as a judge should stop the "nationalist rattle" and "nonsense spread" conducted by Horst Mahler. On March 11, a Potsdam Court sentenced then 73 year old Horst Mahler to additional five years imprisonment for Holocaust denial and banalization of Nazi war crimes; due to the perceived danger of an escape attempt, the sentence was to be immediately carried out.

On March 19, 2009 Mahler's wife, former university teacher and lawyer Sylvia Stolz, was also convicted and imprisoned for Holocaust denial, for her claims that a "Jewish foreign power" ruled the German federal authorities and the Western world, and for claiming that the federal German courts practised "Allied victors' justice" by limiting free speech.