Ursula Haverbeck again given jail sentence at 92

Ursula Haverbeck (above left) with fellow campaigner Dr Rigolf Hennig and Lady Michèle Renouf, who was recently acquitted of Volksverhetzung charges.

The indefatigable campaigner for truth and justice Ursula Haverbeck – who celebrated her 92nd birthday on November 8th – was yet again sentenced by a German court on Friday, under the Federal Republic's notorious Volksverhetzung law that prohibits discussion of certain historical subjects.

Frau Haverbeck, a writer and publisher, for many years ran the educational institute Collegium Humanum with her late husband Werner Haverbeck (1909-1999). The Collegium hosted many prominent intellectuals, including the pioneering ecological author and activist Ernst Friedrich Schumacher.

In 2004 Ursula Haverbeck was fined for Volksverhetzung, and has been convicted several times for further offences, in particular for "denying" that the Auschwitz internment camp was used for the homicidal gassing of Jews. In reality many of her offences consisted simply of asking precise questions of a series of German and Jewish officials – seeking to pin down the exact allegations that are made against wartime German authorities.

Instead of answering these questions in the normal manner, these officials chose to drag Ursula Haverbeck into court, where she has several times been sentenced to prison terms. From May 2018 until last month she was imprisoned in Bielefeld, in the north-west German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Just a month later, another jail sentence – this time 12 months, though appeals will follow. Ursula Haverbeck already has pending appeals against two sentences (one of ten months, the other six) for similar 'crimes'. The 'offence' for which she was sentenced last Friday was a YouTube video interview with former schoolteacher Nikolai Nerling, known as Der Volkslehrer ("People's Teacher").

Monika and Alfred Schaefer

Many Germans are prosecuted every year for Volksverhetzung. The highest profile prisoner still incarcerated is the German-Canadian Alfred Schaefer, whose sister Monika was also imprisoned for her part in 'Holocaust denial' videos. No-one has yet calculated how much the Federal Republic spends on detection and prosecution of such 'crimes'. 84-year-old attorney and author Horst Mahler was imprisoned until last month despite having had both legs amputated during his sentence.

Retired Supreme Court judges Winfried Hassemer and Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem are among those who have called for the repeal of this monstrous debate-denying law.