AP: Holocaust Denier (Ernst Zundel) Gets Prison in Germany

[Eugene]

Holocaust Denier Gets Prison in Germany

By THOMAS SEYTHAL, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, February 15, 2007

(02-15) 06:56 PST MANNHEIM, Germany (AP) --

A far-right activist was convicted of incitement and sentenced to the maximum five
years in prison Thursday for anti-Semitic activities, including contributing to a Web
site dedicated to Holocaust denial.

Ernst Zundel was deported to his native Germany from Canada in 2005 and has also lived
in Tennessee. He and his supporters have argued that he is a peaceful campaigner denied
his right to free speech.

-snip-

Zundel faced 14 counts of incitement for disseminating anti-Semitic propaganda through
a series of pamphlets and the Web site. Denying the Holocaust is a crime in Germany and
is punishable by three months to five years in prison.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/02/15/international/i065652S88.DTL

[geomon666]

1. 5 years for being a racist is a little harsh.

That's just my opinion though.

[LostinVA]

3. "A little racist"???

You can say you don't agree with the sentence, but calling the filth he spews "a little racist" is no different than calling "Mein Kampf "a little racist."

[Caution]

4. looks like you misread that post. he said the punishment was a little harsh not that the scumbag

was a little racist.

FWIW I agree with the poster that this punishment is harsh. Holocaust denial is ignorant at best and at worst, willfully attempts to sell a lie as the truth to further anti-semitic causes.

Through all of that, I'm a firm believer in freedom of speech and if this asshole wishes to say awful things we cannot and should not stop him. Instead we should seek to make sure that the horrors of the Holocaust are made known to everyone.

[Infinite Hope]

5. Well, i won't enter the debate, but they never said "a little racist." n/t

[iverglas]

19. it sure is!

Where did it happen??

Ernst Zundel, of course, was sentenced on

14 counts of incitement for disseminating anti-Semitic propaganda
through a series of pamphlets and the Web site.

"Incitement". That will be an act. Not "being" anything, racist or otherwise.

Just like people who kill other people are sentenced for committing murder, not for being unpleasant.

Strange how confusing some people find this simple concept.

[MonkeyFunk]

20. and a lot of people

especially those who value liberty, don't think publishing pamphlets should be a jailable offense.

[iverglas]

22. and your point was?

Nothing to do with mine, as far as I can tell.

A lot of people, especially those who value other people's lives, do think that inciting things like genocide should be very much a jailable offence.

And many of those people find the notion that Ernst Zundl was just "publishing pamphlets" to be laughable. In a sad, pathetic way.

[MonkeyFunk]

24. Really?

you didn't understand my point? I thought it was rather clear.

And YOU'RE the one who listed his offense as inciting via publishing pamphlets, so I'm confused about why you take issue with what I said, even if you claim not to understand it.

Yes, I understand a lot of people think espousing bad ideas should be jailable. I'm not one of them - the answer to bad speech is more speech. It's something we figured out here a few hundred years ago.

[iverglas]

26. so cute

you didn't understand my point? I thought it was rather clear.

So did I, actually. You read this:

14 counts of incitement for disseminating anti-Semitic propaganda
through a series of pamphlets and the Web site.

in the opening post, and said:

and a lot of people
especially those who value liberty, don't think
publishing pamphlets should be a jailable offense.

For some reason I can't fathom, you chose to tell us what some people thought about PUBLISHING PAMPHLETS in a thread about someone convicted of INCITEMENT (of racial hatred, just in case you really didn't know what you were talking about).

He wasn't convicted or jailed for publishing pamphlets.

He was convicted and jailed for inciting racial hatred.

Publishing pamphlets is not a criminal offence in Germany, or likely anywhere else. Maybe you need to investigate the concept of mens rea ...

Ack, ack, ack; I'm allergic to straw.


Yes, I understand a lot of people think espousing bad ideas should be jailable. I'm not one of them

Hooray for you! Now maybe you'll name your straw pets -- that "lot of people" who think that "espousing bad ideas should be jailable". And tell us what that has to do with the subject at hand.


And YOU'RE the one who listed his offense as inciting via publishing pamphlets, so I'm confused about why you take issue with what I said, even if you claim not to understand it.

Unconfused yet?

I'm not. Really.

Anybody who goes to such lengths to misrepresent something has a very transparent and not at all confusing agenda. And an obviously very shabby argument for whatever position s/he does hold on the issue at hand; too shabby even to offer up for consideration, leaving poking at straw objects as the best option.

I guess it's fun for some.


I'm not one of them - the answer to bad speech is more speech. It's something we figured out here a few hundred years ago.

I wonder whether the 62 million people who died in WWI figured it out as they took their last breath ...

Seems to me that the Germans are the ones who may have figured things out in this instance.

[MonkeyFunk]

28. that's a lot of words

to say nothing.

The fact is, his "Incitement" consisted of expressing his ideas. I don't think that should be punishable.

Would you support similar laws here in the US?

[iverglas]

30. isn't it just? ain't free speech wunnerful?

You don't like my words, you just click on by. You want to whine about them, you whine about them. Such fun to be had.


The fact is, his "Incitement" consisted of expressing his ideas. I don't think that should be punishable.

Okey dokey. It didn't, but you say it did, so that must settle it. And what you think is obviously really really important, and just stands on its own merits and trumps everything anyone else could say. Especially if you say it over and over and sound really really, well, really really like you're prepared to just keep on saying it.

Express that opinion now.

Just don't ever bother considering what any other opinion might be based on. Damn, you might have to learn something.

And certainly don't ever consider offering any persuasive argument for your own. You think/say it, and that's just bloody good enough and no more could ever be expected.

[MonkeyFunk]

32. Try to be more succinct...

what exactly are you saying? What crime did he commit OTHER than expressing his views?

[LostinVA]

2. This is Germany, not the United States

As I wrote in another thread in GD:

I don't believe we have a right to cry "free speech." Their history -- and their anti-Holocaust denial laws -- supersede our Bill of Rights. Europe was destroyed because of the Third Reich. TWELVE MILLION EUROPEAN JEWS AND GENTILES WERE MURDERED. Countries were destroyed, families torn apart. It was something we can't even imagine. We have no right to tell a neighbor to "get over" the murder of their family. And, I think we have no legal or moral right to criticize German people or courts in this matter.

And, free speech isn't absolute in this country, either.... even though people like to think it is. Slander and libel laws, for instance. This is an equivalent style law. It is about slandering and/or libeling a nation, a community, the dead, history. It's their right.

[Caution]

6. It may be German law, that doesn't make it a good one.

I'm the first to say that Holocaust deniers are the worst kind of filth, but I will also defend their right to peddle that garbage. There is no slander or libel in saying "The Holocaust did not happen" Nor is there a "fire!" in a crowded theater scenario. There is only the bald-faced lie of it.

Just because German law clearly states that what this asshole did is illegal does not make the law itself just.

And to say that we do not have the right to disagree with the law is ridiculous. It's the same kind of attitude that certain people have in this country when they get all upset that someone in another country says something negative about President Bush or about Senator Obama. It's absurd.

Where would Amnesty International be if they only allowed citizens of a given country to criticize the policies of that country?

[struggle4progress]

8. Here's an interesting German Law Journal article:

German Law Journal No. 12 (01 December 2002)
The Treatment of Hate Speech in German Constitutional Law
By Winfried Brugger
http://www.germanlawjournal.com/article.php?id=212

A basic point appears to be that Germany, having once lost its freedom by a subversion of democratic process, the Constitution now attempts to safeguard against a recurrence. Thus, hate-speech, which in the past led to substantial hate-crimes, does not always receive full free-speech protection, nor are all false statements necessarily protected free speech, not does political speech aimed at organizing against democratic institutions enjoy protection.

[geek tragedy]

12. Germany has banned any attempt to further the

cause of Nazism. The Nazi party has been for time eternal.

It is illegal to advocate a return to the way Nazi Germany did business.

To that end, it is also illegal to LIE and commit FRAUD in order to help the Nazi cause.

[iverglas]

21. yeah, yeah, yeah

There is no slander or libel in saying "The Holocaust did not happen" Nor is there a "fire!" in a crowded theater scenario. There is only the bald-faced lie of it.

It's just a lie some people wake up one morning and decide to tell ... for no reason at all.

Really. They just like telling lies, and they just happened upon this one and thought it would be kind of fun.

Nothing more to it. Nothing at all.


The devastation caused to Europe by Nazism was noted in a previous post in this thread. It told only a part of the story, though. Not only "twelve million European Jews and Gentiles were murdered" -- those are just (forgive the word) the civilian deaths caused directly and intentionally by German Nazis in one particular area of their activities.


http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm

"Each symbol indicates 100,000 dead in the appropriate theater of operations"
Count 'em, if you like. The skulls are civilian - general (as compared to civilian - Jewish).


The USSR lost over 6 million troops in battle; China well over a million; the US nearly 300,000 -- a lot, but fewer than Yugoslavia, the UK and Romania. Canada lost over 42,000, Australia over 27,000 (both proportionately higher than the US). Count the US flags on that graphic up there to get an idea of the relative sizes of losses (of course that graphic does not include other theatres of war outside Europe).

Add in civilian deaths resulting from the war and the effects of the war, rather than directly from Nazi killing programs -- the USSR's total war deaths were probably over 25 million.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

The total estimated human loss of life caused by World War II, irrespective of political alignment, was roughly 62 million people. The civilian toll was around 37 million, the military toll about 25 million. The Allies lost around 51 million people, and the Axis lost 11 million. (Note that some Axis countries switched sides and reentered the war on the side of the Allies; those nations are included in the Allied count, regardless of when the deaths occurred.) There was a disproportionate loss of life and property; some nations had a higher casualty rate than others, due to a number of factors including military tactics, crimes against humanity, economic preparedness and the level of technology.

62 MILLION PEOPLE. Dead. Dead because of the ambitions of those people with their silly lies and their funny-looking fuehrer.

It can be pretty damned easy for someone sitting comfortably in the USofA to puff and pontificate about freedom of speech when they weren't the ones who suffered the horrors that Holocaust denial laws are an attempt to prevent the recurrence of.

Just because German law clearly states that what this asshole did is illegal does not make the law itself just.

And just because some puffing pontificating and probably very uninformed USAmerican says it isn't doesn't make that so either.

It's the same kind of attitude that certain people have in this country when they get all upset that someone in another country says something negative about President Bush or about Senator Obama.

Actually, it probably isn't remotely similar, since we furriners who say negative things about USAmerican governments, at least, tend to know what we're talking about and not simply be yammering out of some inborn/inbred sense of superiority to the rest of the world.

[MonkeyFunk]

29. wait...

so you're saying the holocaust really WAS bad? Thanks for opening our eyes. :eyes:

[iverglas]

31. eyes wide shut

I know that the teaching of world history has suffered a body blow in the last couple of generations down there ... but you are aware that the Holocaust and WWII are not actually one and the same, right?

I'd say you're welcome, but I'd be taking credit for old rope, I'm afraid.

[MonkeyFunk]

33. my point

was that we are not discussing whether the Holocaust, OR the deaths that resulted from WWII were good. We are discussing the proper way a society deals with speech it doesn't like.

Would you support a law that allowed holocaust deniers or those who espouse nazism to be jailed here in the US?

[iverglas]

34. I couldn't care less

what you do there in the US. I figure things are about beyond hope there anyhow, and not too many people have the clue or the good will it would take to do anything about it if anything can be done, so I don't even bother attempting reasoned persuasion most of the time.

Me, I just entertain myself playing with the puffing pontificators when I've been up all night working and am feeling peevish.

Unlike the puffing pontificators, who like to tell everybody else in the world they're doing it all wrong.

[SayWhatYo]

35. Oh please...

Nearly everyone in the world comments on the US foreign and domestic policies. Why is it only wrong when "stupid & arrogant" Americans do it? I'm all for open debate and people discussing/debating politics, but it should be able to go both ways, right?

[CBGLuthier]

9. slander and libel will not get you jail time

They may make you poorer but I can call anyone anything and not face prison time.

There is no equivelance to being sued for libel or slander and going to prison for the same.

Yes, believe it or not, we all are aware that the bill of rights means squat in Germany.

Doesn't mean that we have to AGREE that there shoould be limits on free speech anywhere in the world though.

And Germany's pressure to make this the law throughout the EU must be resisted.

Unpleasant speech is just that and should NOT be criminal.

[barb162]

15. Well "said"

And I think the Germans are right in their prosecution of this man.

[Sapphire Blue]

7. 6,000,000 hours would be a more just sentence for this Holocaust denier.

Shame on anyone who defends his hateful bigotry w/cries of 'free speech'. This kind of 'speech' must not be defended under any circumstances; it must be condemned.

[Karenina]

10. One is entitled to his/her own opinion

but NOT to proffer imagination as fact. The LAW in Germany is the LAW in Germany. Sonst nichts. Amis can criticize to their hearts' content but it will remain the LAW for reasons which most across the big pond will never be able, or take the time to understand. When the Germans said NEVER AGAIN, they MEANT IT.

America is a much poorer country for all the hate speech broadcast on "the people's airwaves" 24/7, the ravages of which may yet catch up with her citizens.

SB grasps it. Yes, such speech is unacceptable in a civilized, democratic society.

[Hobarticus]

11. Thank you, very much...

Nailed it on the head.

Germany was bombed flat for the sake of inciteful speech. Germany's hands will be stained forever for the sake of inciteful speech.

[Solly Mack]

14. the real kicker?

even after Bush, people still won't get the connection

[Forkboy]

17. Wrong,free speech should ALWAYS be defended

"You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."
John Morley

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."
Noam Chomsky


"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." Eric Arthur Blair or George ORWELL
British novelist and essayist (1903-1950)

"Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself."
Salman RUSHDIE


T"he very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think."
Oliver Wendell Holmes

[superconnected]

13. Look at how many Iraqis are dead now because of Bush propaganda

There is a responsibility that comes with free speech.

Peaceful hate propaganda activists do belong in prison. And yes, so does fox news and the Bush administration, and their writers/publicists.

[Infinite Hope]

16. In general, such laws actually further Nazi ideals...

...of limiting free speech and punishing people for speaking out or being foolish. German law punishes people who the status quo views as foolish or wrong or in disagreement. In a similar way, Nazis effectively cleansed the population of handicap, dissenters, slow people, and others who thought differently.

[iverglas]

23. in general, trivializing and misrepresenting other people

really seldom helps one's cause.

German law punishes people who the status quo views as foolish or wrong or in disagreement.

Really? If I go to Germany and wear purple pantaloons and stand in the public square proclaiming that 2+2=5 and arguing with passersby about what day of the week it is -- making me foolish, wrong and in disagreement -- what will my sentence be?


foolish typo fixed

[MonkeyFunk]

18. free speech creates some problems...

the solution to those problems is MORE free speech, not jail.

I certainly understand Germany's historical reasons for having such laws, but I think they're misguided and won't, in fact, do anything to end nazi ideology, and may in fact help foster it.

[bleedingheart]

25. Now he becomes a Martyr for the right wing

[iverglas]

27. really?

That's an interesting hypothesis. I've just never really seen it borne out in reality.

Zundel spent a long time in Canada, and for much of that time he was trying to make a cause célèbre of himself. Fighting laws (he got one section of the Criminal Code struck down as an unconstitutionally vague limitation on speech), fighting rejection of his citizenship application ... running for leader of the federal Liberal Party ...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/zundel/

and yet there are no statues erected in his honour, no fundamentalist schools named after him, and I don't expect to see any mobs in the street protesting his sentence. He's old news, a done deal, a person of no interest. Despite having been here for nearly 50 years doing his damnedest to place his ugly stamp on Canadian society, and being rather constantly in the public eye and at odds with the authorities of civil society. If there are 17 nasty-looking men gathered in a basement somewhere plotting revenge for all the things done to him, nobody else knows and nobody else gives a shit.

Merely being convicted of a crime really does not a symbol of oppression and figurehead of a movement make. Most of the time, in cases like Zundel's, it just puts out the rubbish and it's gone soon enough.


It's also an interesting basis for a society to decline to perform its functions and live up to its responsibilities, though. The state's primary function is to provide security for the individuals and the collective of people who make it up. If Zundel had committed a bunch of break-ins to fund his movement, or killed a bank teller while robbing a bank, would it be appropriate to decline to prosecute him because doing so would make him a martyr?

I don't know why it would be any more appropriate to decline to enforce any other law enacted to deter harm being caused to people or their society.