Germar Rudolf

Germar Rudolf (born 29 October 1964, Limburg an der Lahn) is a German chemist and Holocaust denier.

Background

After finishing secondary education in 1983 in Remscheid, Rudolf studied chemistry in Bonn, completing his studies in 1989. As a student, he joined A.V. Tuisconia Königsberg zu Bonn and K.D.St.V. Nordgau Prag zu Stuttgart. Both are Catholic fraternities belonging to the Cartellverband der katholischen deutschen Studentenverbindungen. He was a temporary supporter of the CSU/CDU, but parted ways and became a temporary member of Die Republikaner (REP) due to their more patriotic policy.

Finishing Ph.D. postgraduate studies after his military service, he was temporarily employed at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, beginning in October 1990. During this time he wrote a paper, titled "Report on the formation and verifiability of cyanide compounds in the Auschwitz gas chambers" on behalf of the Düsseldorf attorney Hajo Herrmann, a former Luftwaffe pilot holding the rank of Oberst. In 1993, when his "report" caused some media attention, his employer ordered Rudolf not to enter the Max Planck Institute unless asked to. When Rudolf entered the institute without permission, his employment contract was terminated without notice. In 1994 this termination was converted into a termination in mutual agreement. In 1996 the Universty of Stuttgart demanded that Rudolf retracts his application for his final PhD examination, or else the University would deny it, rendering his PhD thesis worthless. The legal basis for this is a German law permitting universities to deny or withdraw academic degrees in case the candidate in question has used his academic credentials or knowledge to commit a crime. Rudolf subsequently withdrew his application.

Herrmann used Rudolf's paper in the defense of Otto Ernst Remer, a former Wehrmacht officer charged with incitement of hatred, a criminal offense in German law. Although Rudolf was aware from the outset that his work would become publicly associated with an extremely controversial individual, he insisted that even an individual as despised by the general public as Remer has a right to a legal defense. Rudolf stated that his findings at Auschwitz and Birkenau "completely shattered his world view," which motivated him to continue despite increasing societal and legal resistance against his work.

Among other things, the report states that, after having collected and analyzed samples from the walls of various buildings in the Auschwitz concentration camp, only insignificant and non-reproducible traces of cyanide compounds can be found in the samples taken from the gas chambers. Rudolf claims that this is in stark contrast to samples from other locations, where hydrogen cyanide (Zyklon B) has been used for non-homicidal purposes (delousing chambers, deloused civil buildings like churches). This report has been critically analyzed by Richard Green and Jamie McCarthy from The Holocaust History Project. Green contends that Rudolf, like Fred Leuchter in the Leuchter report, did not discriminate against the formation of iron-based cyanide compounds, which, according to Green, are not a reliable indicator of the presence of cyanide, and thus Rudolf's research is seriously flawed. Rudolf addressed these and other critical claims in the English edition of his report.

Both in 1994 and in 1995 Rudolf was evicted from his rented apartments after media articles had reported about police searches in his homes. In 1995 a TV report revealing the identity of his current employer led to the immediate termination of his employment contract. That same year Rudolf was expelled from the Catholic fraternities on grounds of having violated his fraternity's principles by his Holocaust denial publications.

Legal consequences: Escape, Deportation and Imprisonment

In 1995, Rudolf was sentenced to 14 months in prison by the district court of Stuttgart because of the "Rudolf Report", as Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany. Rudolf avoided prison by fleeing to Spain, England and finally to the United States. There, he applied for political asylum, but his request was denied in 2006.

Meanwhile, criminal investigations continued in Germany. In August 2004, the district court of Mannheim distrained a bank account in an attempt to confiscate 55% of Rudolf's business turnover from the years 2001-2004 (some €214,000; at that time the account contained only some €5,000, however). Rudolf and his associates had earned this money by selling publications which are banned in Germany, although Rudolf's business was located in the UK and the USA, where this acitivity was and is legal.

On September 11, 2004, Rudolf married a US citizen and subsequently had a child. Nevertheless, his requests for asylum or at least withholding from removal were turned down in November 2004 of that year on the basis that his application had no merits and was indeed "frivolous." Rudolf appealed against this ruling, and as a result of this the US Federal Court in Atlanta denied in early 2006 that his application was frviolous, yet it upheld that it had no merits. While Rudolf's asylum case was still pending, he was arrested on October 19, 2005, seconds after his marriage had been certified as genuine and valid. The Immigration Services stated that Rudolf does not have a right to file an application to remain with his family. On November 14, 2005, Rudolf was deported to Germany. There on arrival, he was arrested by police authorities and transferred first to a prison in Rottenburg, then to one in Stuttgart in Baden-Württemberg. On March 15, 2007, the Mannheim District Court sentenced Rudolf to two years and six months in prison for inciting hatred, disparaging the dead, and libel. Rudolf as well as the prosecution accepted the verdict. Rudolf's "Lectures on the Holocaust" were confiscated and ordered to be destroyed, that is to say: burned in waste incinerators under police supervision. The prosecution's initial request to confiscate €214,000 was reduced to €21,000, the total turnover from sales of the former book.

Publications

After Rudolf left the Max Planck Institute, he started to publish several books on the Holocaust. He founded Castle Hill Publishers in Hastings, England with Theses & Dissertations Press as its American outlet. In 2000 Rudolf launched his English language "Holocaust Handbooks Series", a series of Holocaust denial titles which, as of late 2005, encompassed 20 titles. Furthermore, Rudolf is closely associated with the Belgian Holocaust denial organization Vrij Historisch Onderzoek (VHO).

Dissecting the Holocaust

Dissecting the Holocaust was edited and coauthored by Rudolf under the nom de plume Ernst Gauss. The German language publication with the title Grundlagen zur Zeitgeschichte resulted in further indictments being filed against Rudolf. Among the contributors to the work are other Holocaust deniers such as Robert Faurisson, Jürgen Graf, Carlo Mattogno, Udo Walendy and Friedrich Paul Berg. Included as an appendix is a defense of the work used at the trial by historian, Joachim Hoffmann.

Investigation into new reports about 9/11

In July 2003, according to his own published articles, Rudolf conducted limited experiments in the use of cell phones from an airliner while in flight. He reports mixed results and has left the question open. His stated reason for conducting these experiments is to verify or deny a widely circulated claim that it is impossible to make cell phone calls from an airliner at cruising height. This he co-authored with Alexander Dewdney.

He was released from German prison, July 5, 2009.

External links

• Germar Rudolf's Homepage
• Detailed response to Rudolf's report by Richard Green from The Holocaust History Project
• The 2004 annual report by the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (PDF, German)