Britain and Germany begin reckoning with historical truth

 

Horst Mahler and Ursula Haverbeck celebrate their release this week

This week two incarcerated Germans – 84-year-old Horst Mahler and 92-year-old Ursula Haverbeck – celebrated their release from jail. The outside world finds it incredible that people of this age should be jailed for anything – still more incredible that their 'crimes' were political: daring to question orthodox versions of mid-20th century European history.

Horst Mahler had been prosecuted for several political offences since 2003, and had been in a Brandenburg prison since June 2017, having earlier been jailed from 2009 to 2015. During his sentence he has suffered increasing ill health including the amputation of both legs.

Ursula Haverbeck had been imprisoned for two and a half years since May 2018 and has faced repeated trials after daring to ask questions of the German authorities about what she terms "the biggest and most persistent lie in history" – the alleged 'holocaust' of European Jewry.

Meanwhile a new era in Anglo-German relations was hailed this same week with the visit of the heir to the British throne – the Prince of Wales – to Germany, the first member of the British Royal Family to attend Germany's National Day of Mourning which began in 1919 to commemorate the dead of the First World War.

The Prince of Wales and German President Steinmeier lay wreaths to commemorate Germany's National Day of Mourning on November 15th

The Prince noted that Berlin "embodies so much of the history of our continent, and all that we have been through". His wish for reconciliation depends of course on a truthful and honest reckoning with the past – which would require Germany to abandon its notorious Volksverhetzung law 130. That law prohibits the normal historical argument and conflicting research that in every other field is regarded as essential to establish truth and falsehood.

Just a month earlier the German state averted severe embarrassment when prosecutors dropped their case against a British citizen who had been arrested while addressing a memorial event in Dresden in February 2018.

Lady Michèle Renouf had overheard a German lady at this event saying that Britons had no right to be in Dresden, because of the Royal Air Force's terror bombing of the city in February 1945.

Lady Renouf with the Prince of Wales at his family residence, Highgrove House

In a brief impromptu speech replying to these comments, Lady Renouf sought to explain why she and fellow Britons had come to Dresden to apologise for the real holocaust of German civilians there and in other German towns and cities during the Second World War.

For this and other comments Lady Renouf was arrested and charged under German laws that prohibit 'Holocaust denial' and generally end in prison sentences.

However for reasons that will be explored on this blog over the next few weeks, Dresden prosecutors eventually concluded (after two and a half years preparing their case) that a trial would be too embarrassing as it risked drawing attention to matters referred to in Lady Renouf's speech that the political establishment would rather forget. They dropped the charges just two days before the trial was to begin in October 2020.

Ursula Haverbeck faces fresh criminal charges this month but increasing numbers of legal and constitutional experts, as well as political and historical commentators, now believe that 'anti-revisionist' or 'historical memory' laws are untenable. As Britain marked the 100th anniversary last week of the burial of the Unknown Soldier at Westminster Abbey – the emblematic victim of 20th century European brothers' wars – is it too much to expect the Second World War and its legacy to be examined as history rather than distorted as theology?

Lady Renouf with Wolfgang Wagner – grandson of the composer – at the 1997 Bayreuth Festival.  As the son of a German father and English mother, Wolfgang Wagner was a symbol of our shared heritage.