Germar Rudolf

Germar Rudolf (born 29 October 1964 in Limburg an der Lahn), is a German chemist and Holocaust denier. He took the name of his first wife, Scheerer, until the two divorced.

Temporarily, he was a member of the Die Republikaner, a German right-wing party.

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 German fraternities belonging to the Cartellverband der katholischen deutschen Studentenverbindungen. He was expelled in 1995 on grounds of having violated his fraternity's principles with his publications.

Finishing PhD 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.

Herrmann used Rudolf's paper in the defense of retired Wehrmacht general and prominent Nazi activist Otto Ernst Remer, charged with incitement of the people, a criminal offense in German law. In this paper, the disputed "Rudolf Report," Rudolf claims having collected samples of the gas chambers' brickwork in the Auschwitz concentration camp, finding only small traces of cyanide compounds in the wall's remainders. The report has been challenged since by Richard Green and Jamie McCarthy from The Holocaust History Project.

In 1993, Rudolf was expelled from the Max Planck Institute for his unauthorised use of the institute's name to get samples analysed that were taken from the gas chamber sites at Auschwitz and Birkenau. He sued unsuccessfully against the decision. Since then, he has given advice in law suits concerning holocaust denial and related offenses, receiving financial support from sponsors and by working as a publisher.

Legal consequences: Escape, Deportation and Imprisonment

In 1994, Rudolf was sentenced to 14 months in prison by the district court of Tübingen because of the "Rudolf Report." (Holocaust denial is considered a crime in Germany.) Rudolf avoided prison by fleeing to Spain, England and finally to Chicago, USA. There, he applied for political asylum, but his request was denied.

Meanwhile, criminal investigation continued in Germany. In August 2004, the district court of Mannheim distrained a bank account holding over €200,000. Rudolf and his associates had earned this money by selling Holocaust denying publications.

On September 11, 2004, Rudolf married a US citizen. Nevertheless, his request for asylum was finally turned down in November of that year on the basis that his application was "frivolous." On October 19, 2005, Rudolf was arrested and deported to Germany on November 15. There on arrival, he was arrested by police authorities and transferred to a prison in Baden-Württemberg.

Publications

After Rudolf left the Max Planck Institute, he started to publish several books on Holocaust revisionism. He used several pseudonyms, allegedly to generate the impression of several experts agreeing with him, cross referencing their work. He claims this to have been justified due to the biased legal process in Germany. In 1998, Rudolf founded Castle Hill Publishers in Hastings, England. Furthermore, he is closely associated with the Belgian revisionist 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 Revisionist scholars such as Professor Robert Faurisson, Jürgen Graf, Carlo Mattogno, Udo Walendy and Friedrich Paul Berg. Included as an appendix is a lengthy review of the work written by professional historian and leading expert on German-Soviet military and diplomatic history, Joachim Hoffmann.

Politics

Allegations of neo-Nazi Leanings

It is alleged that Germar Rudolf has neo-Nazi leanings. Rudolf addresses this matter in the book Dissecting the Holocaust, for which he has been imprisoned, as follows: "It must be said here and now that none of the authors contributing to the present work considers himself ideologically anywhere in the vicinity of National Socialism."

Allegations of Right-Wing Extremism

It is alleged that Germar Rudolf has extremist right-wing leanings. In Dissecting the Holocaust he makes it clear that that he considers himself to be on the political right, he also make it clear that extremism is dangerous, and something to be avoided. He has this to say in his discussion of the political responsibilities of Holocaust Revisionists:

"It ought therefore to be the foremost concern of moderate politics to see to it that the discussion about the Holocaust spreads to social circles other than radical or extremist ones, so that any potential consequences of a revision of historiography can be represented and implemented credibly and competently by respectable and respected politicians. And the foremost concern of the scientist must be to alert the politicians to this fact and to accompany them as they steer their way among the cliffs of scientific insights."

Involvement in the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Fringe

In July 2003, Rudolf circulated on the net a claim that the events of 9/11 could not have happened as believed, because in his claim it is impossible to make cellular phone calls from an airliner at cruising height. This he co-authored with Alexaner Dewdney

External links

• Press bulletin by ICE concerning Rudolf's deportation
• Further details at the IDGR (German, automated translation links provided here)
• Germar Rudolf's Homepage
• Revisionism – an Ideology of Liberation by Germar Rudolf
• The Rudolf Report
• Detailed Refutation of Rudolf's report by Richard Green from The Holocaust History Project.
• ICE deports "Holocaust Revisionist" to Germany News Release, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, November 15 2005
• The 2004 annual report by the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (PDF, German)