Ernst Zündel
Ernst Zündel | |
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Born | Ernst Christof Friedrich Zündel 24 April 1939 |
Died | 5 August 2017[1] Bad Wildbad, Baden-Württemberg, Germany | (aged 78)
Known for | Neo-Nazism Holocaust denial |
Political party | Ralliement créditiste (before 1968) Liberal (1968) Social Credit (1983-1987) |
Spouse(s) | Janick Larouche (m. 1959; div. 1975), Irene Margarelli (m. 1996; div. 1997), Ingrid Rimland (m. 2001) |
Children | 2 |
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Antisemitism |
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Ernst Christof Friedrich Zündel (German:
In 1977, Zündel founded a small press publishing house called
On 5 February 2003, Ernst Zündel was detained by local police in the U.S. and deported to Canada, where he was detained for two years on a
Background
Zündel was born in Calmbach (now part of Bad Wildbad) in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, in 1939 and was raised mostly by his mother, Gertrude. His father, Fritz, a lumberjack, was drafted into the German Army shortly after Ernst's birth and served as a medic on the Eastern Front. His father was captured and incarcerated as a prisoner of war and did not return home until 1947, by which time he had become an alcoholic. Ernst was the fourth in a family of six children consisting of a brother, who later became a lawyer in the United States, and four sisters.[11]
He studied graphic art at
Professionally, Zündel worked as a graphic artist, photographer, photo retoucher, and printer.
Under his Friedrich pseudonym, he wrote a preface to Savitri Devi's Nazi-Esoteric book The Lightning and the Sun.[15]
Zündel gained prominence during the 1970s as spokesman for Concerned Parents of German Descent, a group that claimed
In 1994, Zündel campaigned in Canada to ban the movie
On 8 May 1995, his
Holocaust denial
His publishing company,
By the early 1980s, Samisdat Publishers had grown into a worldwide distributor of Nazi and neo-Nazi posters, audiotapes, and memorabilia, as well as pamphlets and books devoted to Holocaust denial and what he claimed were Allied and Israeli war crimes. He purportedly had a mailing list of 29,000 in the United States alone. Advertisement space for Samisdat Publishers was purchased in well-known reputable American magazines and even comic books. West Germany became another large market, in violation of West German Volksverhetzung (incitement of the masses) laws preventing Holocaust denial and dissemination of Nazi and neo-Nazi material, with Samisdat going so far as to send mass mailings to every member of the West German Bundestag (parliament).
In December 1980, the West German Federal Ministry of Finance told the Bundestag that between January 1978 and December 1979, "200 shipments of right-wing content, including books, periodicals, symbols, decorations, films, cassettes, and records" had been intercepted entering West Germany; these shipments "came overwhelmingly from Canada." On 23 April 1981, the West German government sent a letter to the Canadian Jewish Congress, confirming that the source of the material was Samisdat Publishers.
From 1981 to 1982, Zündel had his mailing privileges suspended by the Canadian government on the grounds that he had been using the mail to send hate propaganda, a criminal offence in Canada. Zündel then began shipping from a post office box in Niagara Falls, New York, until the ban on his mailing in Canada was lifted in January 1983.
Holocaust denial trials in the 1980s
In 1983,
Zündel underwent two criminal trials in 1985 and 1988. The charge against Zündel alleged that he "did publish a statement or tale, namely, Did Six Million Really Die? that he knows is false and that is likely to cause mischief to the public interest in social and racial tolerance, contrary to the Criminal Code". After a much publicized trial in 1985, Zündel was found guilty. One of the prosecution witnesses,
His conviction was later overturned in an appeal on a legal technicality, leading to a second trial in 1988, in which he was again convicted. Zündel was originally found guilty by two juries but was finally acquitted upon appeal by the
The 1988 trial relied on testimony from Holocaust deniers David Irving and Fred A. Leuchter, a self-taught execution technician.[25] Leuchter's testimony as an expert witness was accepted by the court, but his accompanying Leuchter report was excluded, based on his lack of engineering credentials. In 1985, key expert testimony against Zündel's Holocaust denial was provided at great lengths by Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg, who refused to testify at Zündel's 1988 trial. Zündel was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to 15 months imprisonment by an Ontario court; however, in 1992 in R v Zundel his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada when the law under which he had been charged, reporting false news, was ruled unconstitutional.[26]
Canadian Human Rights Commission; first departure from Canada
In 1997, Zündel's marriage with his second wife, Irene Marcarelli, ended after 18 months. She subsequently testified against him in the late 1990s when he was under investigation by the Canadian Human Rights Commission for promoting hatred against Jews via his website. In January 2000, before the commission had completed its hearings, he left Canada for Sevierville, Tennessee, in the US, where he married his third wife, Ingrid Rimland,[8] and vowed never to return to Canada.[27]
Detention, deportation, and imprisonment
Deportation from the United States
In 2003, Zündel was arrested by the United States government for violating immigration rules, specifically visa waiver overstay, which he argued was a trumped up charge. After two weeks he was deported. A warrant for his arrest for Volksverhetzung (incitement of the masses) had been issued in Germany, where he remained a citizen, in the same year. At his hearing, Zündel described himself as "the
Detention and deportation from Canada
Although Zündel lived in Canada for more than 40 years prior to moving to the United States, he never gained
On May 2, 2003, Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Minister
Zündel moved twice to have Canadian Federal Court justice Pierre Blais recuse himself from the case for "badgering and accusing the witness of lying" and exhibiting "open hostility" towards Zündel, and filed two constitutional challenges, one in the Ontario courts and one in the federal courts, both unsuccessful. During the hearing, Zündel characterized his position as "Sometimes I feel like a black man being convicted on Ku Klux Klan news clippings."[29]
Zündel meanwhile moved to be released from detention on his own recognizance while the legal proceedings were ongoing. His lawyer, Doug Christie, introduced as a "surprise witness" Lorraine Day, a California doctor who practiced alternative cancer treatments, to testify that Zündel's incarceration at Toronto's Toronto West Detention Centre was causing his chest tumor (revealed to the court a few weeks previously) to grow and his blood pressure to rise, that the medication supplied to control his blood pressure was causing side effects such as a slow heart rate and loss of memory, and that he needed "exercise, fresh air, and freedom from stress. The whole point is we need to have his high blood pressure controlled without the drug."[29] On January 21, 2004, after three months of hearings including both public and secret testimony, Justice Blais again ruled against Zündel with a damning statement.[citation needed]
During his imprisonment, Canadian right-wing leader
On February 24, 2005, Justice Blais ruled that Canada could deport Zündel back to Germany at any time, and on February 25, Zündel's lawyer, Peter Lindsay, announced that his client would not attempt to obtain a stay against the deportation and that his fight to remain in Canada was over. In his decision, Justice Blais noted that Zündel had had the opportunity to respond to the allegations of the decision of January 21 by explaining the nature of his contacts with the extremists mentioned and/or providing exonerating witnesses, but had failed to do so. Blais found that "Mr. Zündel's activities are not only a threat to Canada's national security, but also a threat to the international community of nations."[30]
Zündel was deported to Germany on March 1, 2005.
Trial and imprisonment in Germany
German prosecutors charged Zündel on July 19, 2005, with 14 counts of inciting racial hatred, which is punishable under
His trial was scheduled for five days beginning November 8, 2005, but ran into an early delay when Judge Ulrich Meinerzhagen ruled that lawyer Horst Mahler, whose licence to practise as a lawyer was withdrawn in 2004 and who, in January 2005, was sentenced to nine months in prison for inciting racial hatred, could not be part of the defence team. Mahler had been associated with the violent far-left Red Army Faction in the 1970s, but had since become a supporter of far-right and antisemitic groups. Zündel's public defender Sylvia Stolz was also dismissed on the grounds that her written submissions to the court included Mahler's ideas. On November 15, 2005, Meinerzhagen announced that the trial was to be rescheduled to allow new counsel time to prepare.[34]
The trial resumed on February 9, 2006, for several court sessions but then adjourned on March 9 when the trial judge asked for Sylvia Stolz to be removed as Zündel's defence lawyer after she repeatedly disrupted the trial and had to be dragged out of the court by two bailiffs. Stolz signed "Heil Hitler" on court motions, said the Holocaust was "the biggest lie in world history," and yelled that the judge deserved the death penalty for "offering succour to the enemy". In 2008, Stolz was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison and stripped of her licence to practice law for five years.[35][36]
The trial again resumed on June 9, 2006, and continued, intermittently, into early 2007. The prosecution concluded its case on January 26, 2007, calling for Zündel to be handed the maximum sentence of five years' imprisonment with state prosecutor Andreas Grossman calling him a "political con man" from whom the German people needed protection. After quoting extensively from Zündel's writings on the Holocaust, Grossman argued "[you] might as well argue that the sun rises in the West ... But you cannot change that the Holocaust has been proven."[9] In its closing arguments the defence called for Zündel to be acquitted.[37][38]
On February 15, 2007, Zündel was sentenced to five years in prison, the maximum sentence possible for violating the Volksverhetzung law in the German penal code which bans incitement of hatred against a minority of the population, which is how his Holocaust denial was interpreted by the Federal German court.[39]
His time in pre-trial confinement in Canada was not taken into account on his sentence, but only the two years he was confined in Germany since 2005. One of his lawyers, Jürgen Rieger, a leading member of Germany's NPD, was forbidden to voice petitions and ruled to put them down in writing; he let another lawyer read them aloud. Another lawyer read parts of Mein Kampf and parts of the NS race legislation aloud in his closing speech. Zündel asked for the inception of an expert's commission to examine the Holocaust. The judge in his emotional closing speech called Zündel a "Brunnenvergifter und Brandstifter, einen Verehrer dieses menschenverachtenden Barbaren Adolf Hitler, von dem er dummdreist daherschwafelt" ("well-poisoner and arsonist, an admirer of this human-despising barbarian Adolf Hitler, of whom he rambles on with brash impertinence"). Holocaust deniers used Zündel trials to claim that freedom of speech was impaired in Germany as that it depended on the ideology of the speaker.[40]
Release from prison
Zündel was released on March 1, 2010, five years after his deportation to Germany.
Zündel returned to his childhood home in the Black Forest, which had been vacant since his mother's death in the 1990s, and lived there until his own death.[42]
Barred from entering the United States
On March 31, 2017, the
UFOlogy
When Zündel started Samisdat Publishers in the 1970s, he became interested in ufology when the subject was at its peak of worldwide attention. His main offerings were his own books claiming that flying saucers were secret weapons developed by the Third Reich and now based in Antarctica.[44]
Under the pseudonyms Christof Friedrich and Mattern Friedrich, Zündel also wrote several publications promoting the idea that UFOs were craft developed by German scientists who had fled to New Swabia, Antarctica. These titles include "Secret Nazi Polar Expeditions" (1978) and "Hitler at the South Pole" (1979). He promoted the idea of Nazi secret bases in Antarctica, Nazi UFOs, secret polar bases and Hollow Earth theories.
Along with Willibald Mattern, a German émigré living in Santiago, Chile, Zündel also wrote UFOs: Nazi Secret Weapon? on Nazi UFOs in German and translated into English.
It is not clear whether Zündel really believed these theories or whether they were merely speculative fiction.[44][45][46][47]
In the
According to Frank Miele, a member of The Skeptics Society in the United States, Zündel told him that his book UFOs: Nazi Secret Weapon? (which became an underground bestseller, going through several printings) was nothing more than popular fiction to build publicity for Samisdat. Zündel said in a telephone conversation with Miele: "I realized that North Americans were not interested in being educated. They want to be entertained. The book was for fun. With a picture of the Führer on the cover and flying saucers coming out of Antarctica it was a chance to get on radio and TV talk shows. For about 15 minutes of an hour program I'd talk about that esoteric stuff. Then I would start talking about all those Jewish scientists in
Ancestry
According to Toronto Sun columnist Mark Bonokoski, Zündel's mother was Gertrude Mayer, the daughter of Isadore and Nagal Mayer.[52] Isadore Mayer was a trade union organizer for the garment industry in the Bavarian city of Augsburg.[52]
According to Bonokoski, Ernst's ex-wife, Irene Zündel, claimed that the possibility of being at least partly Jewish bothered Zündel so much that he returned to Germany in the 1960s in search of his family's Ariernachweis, a Third Reich certificate of pure Aryan blood, but was unable to find any such document. [52]
In 1997, Zündel granted an interview to Tsadok Yecheskeli of the Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, that includes the following exchange:
Zundel: If you are fishing for any political information, my father was a Social Democrat, my mother a simple Christian woman. Her father had been a union organizer in Bavaria, and of the garment workers' union. His name got him into trouble because it was Isadore Mayer and, of course, he was called Izzy by his people and the people thought he ...
Yecheskeli: Was Jewish?
Zundel: No, I don't ... don't think so.
Yecheskeli: Are you sure there's no Jewish blood in your family?
Zundel: No.[52]
Death
Zündel died at his home in Germany, of a heart attack, on August 5, 2017.[53][54][55] He was survived by two children, and his widow Ingrid Rimland, who died on October 12, 2017.[56][57]
See also
Notes
- ^ "Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, deported from Canada in 2005, dies aged 78". Global News. August 7, 2017.
- neo-Nazimovement
- ^ Burns, John F. (March 30, 1988). "Canada Puts Neo-Nazi's Ideas on Trial, Again". The New York Times. Retrieved January 26, 2020.
- ^ a b "Ernst Zundel", Anti-Defamation League (accessed July 26, 2008)
- ^ "Ernst Zundel sentenced to 5 years for Holocaust denial". CBC News. February 15, 2007. Retrieved January 26, 2020.
- ^ Connolly, Kate (February 16, 2007). "Holocaust denial writer jailed for five years". The Guardian. London.
- ^ CBC News (March 2, 2005). "Trial could turn Zundel into neo-Nazi martyr: observer".
- ^ a b Irwin, Anna C. (February 8, 2003). "Renowned Neo-Nazi activist held in Blount County jail". The Daily Times. Maryville, Tennessee.
- ^ a b c Associated Press & Canadian Press (February 15, 2007). "Ernst Zundel sentenced to 5 years in prison for Holocaust denial". Winnipeg Free Press. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved February 15, 2007.
- ^ "Zundel released from German prison". CBC News. March 1, 2010. Retrieved January 26, 2020.
- ^ a b Freeman, Alan (March 7, 2003). "Embarrassment and denial in Zundel's hometown". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
- ^ a b c "Ernst Zundel Bio Information". www.soaringeaglesgallery.com. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
- ^ a b Cheney, Peter (March 8, 2003). "The wives, the marriages of chameleon Ernst Zundel". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
- ^ The Zundel Affair Archived November 5, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, Shofar FTP Archives, nizkor.net
- ^ "** RARE ** The Lightning And The Sun by Savitri Devi 1958 ** First Edition ** | #1901503588". /www.worthpoint.com.
- ^ Bonokoski, Mark. "Zundel released from German Jail", Toronto Sun, March 2, 2010.
- ^ "Schindler's List Exposed as Lies and Hate" Archived April 12, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, 1994 leaflet published by Zündel's Samisdat Publishers
- ^ "Ernst Zündel on "Schindler's List"". Archived from the original on December 11, 2014. Retrieved February 7, 2009.
- ^ Censorship offer file Archived May 15, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, Shofar FTP Archive, The Nizkor Project
- ^ a b c Shermer, Michael. Why People Believe Weird Things, 1997, p.185.
- ^ Deutsch, Linda. "U.S. Jewish militants charged in bomb plot: Los Angeles mosque, congressman's office were intended targets", Ottawa Citizen, December 13, 2001.
- ^ Stancu, Henry. "Police detonate bomb sent to Zündel's home 'Just another day in life of Ernst Zundel,' he says", Toronto Star, May 21, 1995.
- ^ Hogben, David. "Charges stayed against activists accused of mailing booby-trapped letters", Canadian Press, September 26, 2000.
- ^ The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand, January 15, 1985
- ^ Morris, Errol (2006). "Mr. Death: Transcript". Retrieved March 4, 2007.
- ^ Full text of Supreme Court of Canada decision at LexUM
- ^ Freeze, Colin (February 13, 2003). "Deportation to Germany threatens jailed Zundel". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved January 26, 2020.
- ^ Murphy, Rex (February 22, 2003). "Let's try Zundel denial". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved January 26, 2020.
- ^ a b Glenn Hauser (September 29, 2003). "DX LISTENING DIGEST 3-171". worldofradio.com.
- ^ Makin, Kirk (February 25, 2005). "Court finds Zundel can be deported". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved January 26, 2020.
- ^ "Zundel turned over to German authorities". CBC News. March 1, 2005.
- ^ Germany, SPIEGEL ONLINE, Hamburg (March 2005). "Kanada: Holocaust-Leugner Zündel abgeschoben - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Panorama". Der Spiegel.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "University of Minnesota Human Rights Library". hrlibrary.umn.edu.
- ^ "Neo-Nazi Trial Put on Ice After Upset". Deutsche Welle. November 15, 2005. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
- ^ "German Neo-Nazi Lawyer Sentenced for Denying Holocaust". Deutsche Welle. January 14, 2008. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
- ^ "Anwältin aus dem Saal getragen" [Lawyer Dragged Out of Court]. Star. January 14, 2008. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
- ^ "Five years' jail urged for Zundel". Toronto Star. Associated Press. January 26, 2007. Retrieved January 26, 2007.
- ^ "Defense seeks acquittal of far-right activist Ernst Zundel at German trial". International Herald Tribune. Associated Press. February 9, 2007. Retrieved February 13, 2007.
- ^ Canada Press (February 15, 2007). "German court sentences Ernst Zundel to 5 years in prison for Holocaust denial". Canada.com. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved February 15, 2007.
- ^ Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz Baden-Württemberg (March 2007). "Verteidigung von ZÜNDEL legt Revision ein". Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz Baden-Württemberg. Archived from the original on May 29, 2007. Retrieved May 30, 2007.
- ^ "Holocaust Denier Zündel Released", Associated Press, March 1, 2010
- ^ a b "Zündel free but barred from Canada"[permanent dead link], National Post, March 2, 2010
- ^ "Opinion - Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel barred from moving to the U.S., though his wife is an American citizen". Washington Post. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
- ^ a b Zündel, Ernst (as Christof Friedrich) (1974). UFO's — Nazi Secret Weapon?. Samisdat Publishers.
- ^ Goodricke-Clarke. Black Sun, pp.158, 331.
- ^ a b Zündel, Ernst (as Christof Friedrich) (1979). "Samisdat Hollow Earth Expedition". The Nizkor Project. Archived from the original on August 30, 2008. Retrieved August 27, 2006.
- ^ Zündel, Ernst. "Zündelgram". December 1, 2002. Obtained from The Nizkor Project on August 27, 2006
- ^ a b "Ernst Zündel's Flying Saucers". The Nizkor Project. Archived from the original on October 22, 2019. Retrieved August 27, 2006.
- ^ Baker, Alan. Invisible Eagle, pp.268-272.
- ^ Miele, Frank. "Giving the Devil His Due", regarding Zündel's "UFOs: Nazi Secret Weapons?"
- ^ Zündel, Ernst (December 1, 2002). "Zündelgram". archived at The Nizkor Project. Archived from the original on December 15, 2018. Retrieved August 27, 2006.
- ^ a b c d Mark Bonokoski (March 2, 2005). "The Jewish card". Toronto Sun. Archived from the original on March 9, 2013. Retrieved September 27, 2009.
- ^ Chan, Sewell (August 7, 2017). "Ernst Zündel, Holocaust Denier Tried for Spreading His Message, Dies at 78". The New York Times. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
- ^ "Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel dead at age 78". CTV. August 6, 2017. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
- ^ "Report that Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel dead at 78, but wife says he sounded fine". National Post. August 7, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
- ^ "Australia's Democracy put to the test". www.adelaideinstitute.org.
- ^ "Home". www.zundelsite.org.
Further reading
- Wieman, Gabriel and Winn, Conrad (1986) Hate on Trial: The Zundel Case, the Media and Public Opinion in Canada Toronto: Mosaic Press.
External links
Media related to Ernst Zündel at Wikimedia Commons
- Anti-Defamation League on Ernst ZundelArchived March 13, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
- Nizkor Project archive criticism of Zündel Archived January 28, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- Ernst Zündel at IMDb