Horst Mahler

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Horst Mahler (born 23 January 1936 in Haynau, Lower Silesia, now Chojnów, Poland) is a German lawyer who is known for his advocacy of radical politics. He has been convicted of Volksverhetzung and Holocaust denial.

Mahler became known as a founding member of the radical leftist Baader-Meinhof Group in 1970. In 2000 he joined the right-wing NPD and represented the party in court.

He is currently barred from practicing law in Germany.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Education and career 2 Leftist activity 2.1 Early political activism 2.2 Founding of the RAF 2.3 Imprisonment 3 Change to right-wing politics 3.1 Beginning of right-wing politics 3.2 NPD 4 Recent activities 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Education and career

Mahler studied law at the Free University of Berlin. In 1964 he founded a law firm in Berlin and practiced microeconomic law. In 1966 he successfully argued a case before the European Convention on Human Rights.^[1]

As a young lawyer, Mahler defended Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Rudi Dutschke.^[2]

[edit] Leftist activity

[edit] Early political activism

Prior to 1960, Mahler was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. With the split of the party in 1960, he joined the founding group of the Socialist German Student Federation^[3] He joined the new party's call for "extra-parliamentary opposition", or forceful resistance.^[4] He represented the Ausserparlamentarische Opposition and was a member of the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.^[3]

After the attempted assassination of Rudi Dutschke, Mahler took part in the violent protests against Springer Publishing House. He was arrested for his involvement.^[5]

[edit] Founding of the RAF

Having earlier befriended Ensslin and Baader, Mahler helped plot to spring Baader from prison after his 1970 arrest. Once Baader escaped, the three, along with Ulrike Meinhof, committed a series of bank robberies in September of 1970.^[6] The four fled to Jordan and trained in guerrilla tactics with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.^[7]

Upon his return from Jordan, Mahler was arrested with fellow RAF members Ingrid Schubert, Brigitte Asdonk, and Irene Goergens on 8 October 1970. He was tried and convicted for the bank robberies and for assisting a prison escape. By 1974, Mahler had been sentenced to 14 years imprisonment and had his license to practice law revoked.^[5]

[edit] Imprisonment

Mahler penned a manifesto in prison. The rest of the Baader-Meinhof Group, however, resoundingly rejected his manifesto, effectively expelling him from the group.^[6] Then, in 1975, the Movement 2 June took Peter Lorenz hostage and demanded, among others, that Mahler be freed from prison. Mahler was offered his freedom, but refused.^[6]

In 1980 Mahler was freed from prison after serving 10 years of his 14-year sentence, largely due to the efforts of his lawyer, Gerhard Schröder (who would later become chancellor). He was granted permission to practice law again in Germany in 1988, again with the help of Schröder.^[8]

[edit] Change to right-wing politics

[edit] Beginning of right-wing politics

Mahler made the acquaintance of political theorists Iring Fetscher and Günter Rohrmoser, who visited him in prison. While the German courts noted a change in Mahler's political posturing in the mid 1980s,^[5] he first gained attention for it at Rohrmoser's 70th birthday celebration on 1 December 1997. There Mahler gave a speech declaring that Germany was "occupied" and had to free itself from its "debt bondage" to reestablish its national identity.^[9]

Mahler took little role in politics until an article by him appeared in the right wing paper Junge Freiheit in 1998, explaining his conversion to Volkisch ideas.^[10] Mahler has since underlined the spiritual side of his political beliefs, whilst marrying this to anti-Semitism, arguing that:

In the German people as free self-confidence, the unity of God and Man appears in the Folk-community knowing itself. This is the existing negation of the Jewish Principle and of the haggler/bargainer as its worldly shape.^[11]

[edit] NPD

Mahler joined the National Democratic Party of Germany (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, or NPD), a right-wing nationalist party, in 2000.^[3]

The German government began a process to attempt to ban the NPD in 2001. Mahler was an attorney for the party at the time. The government, citing accusations of Volksverhetzung (Germany's hate speech law) against the party, petitioned the court to allow them to seize Mahler's computer assets. Mahler successfully defeated the effort.^[5]

In 2003, after the official case to ban the NPD had been rejected by the German courts, he left the party.

[edit] Recent activities

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,^[12] 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."^[12]

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."^[13] 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 to prevent him from attending the "International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust" in Tehran, Iran.

As of November 2007, Mahler was facing new charges for Volksverhetzung. The charges stem from an interview for Vanity Fair with Michel Friedman, 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 Adolf Hitler was "the savior of the German people [but] not only of the German people.”^[14]

On November 23, 2007, the Amtsgericht Cottbus sentenced Mahler to six months of imprisonment without parole for having performed the Hitler salute when reporting to prison for a nine-month term a year earlier.^[15]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Horst Mahler's Home Page

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