Germar Rudolf - Persecution

Persecution

Once upon a time, I was the victim of government persecution. So what? No big deal… Or maybe it is. This is not for me to decide. Hence, I would like to let somebody else do the talking on this page. Everybody can claim to have been persecuted. I’m not a Michael Kohlhass, a guy who runs screaming “bloody murder” as soon as someone steps on his toe. Also, I hope that the phase of my life bringing me into conflict with government authorities is over for good, so I can quite dwelling on that unpleasant era.
I probably will post some documents and essays on my past persecution here later, as I have done on my old site, but it will be more subtle and in the background. Plus it’s not my priority right now. So bear with me for awhile.

A Lawyer’s Take

I am an attorney who is writing about the surprising troubles brought down upon a young German scholar named Germar Rudolf. If I did not know Mr. Rudolf and had not seen the documents, I would not belief that such calamities could occur in America.
Germar’s troubles started in 1991, as he was working on his doctoral thesis at the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany.
Because Germar was interested in history and because he had an advanced degree in Chemistry, he was asked to prepare a forensic expert report by the defense team of Otto Ernst Remer. Remer was a defendant on trial for “Holocaust denial.” At this point, I need to explain a German penal law that might seem amazing to Americans: Section 130 (3). This law makes expressing doubt about any crimes of the Nazis a felony punishable by up to 5 years in jail. As a comparison, distributing pornography to someone under 18 years of age is only punishable by imprisonment of not more than one year or a fine under German criminal code Sec. 184.
Some German scholars claim that parts of their history books are incorrect, contain Soviet propaganda, and should not be believed. Otto Remer held similar views. To make matters worse, Remer had been in the German army during World War II and was proud of his service.

Rudolf was asked to study many documents, take samples, have them analyzed, and write a report about his findings, with only his expenses paid. Among other things, Germar tested some of the buildings at the notorious Auschwitz Camp for cyanide residues, which are chemical traces of the infamous Zyklon B. He put his findings in an expert report, which was later offered as evidence by Remer’s defense team. Unfortunately for Germar, Remer also included his own interpretation of the results in a preface and an epilogue to the Report.
The German Court was furious, and Germar was associated with Remer in the eyes of the German Media and the Court. A 14 months criminal sentence followed with more criminal charges threatened for Germar’s ongoing forensic research activities.
At that point Germar fled Germany, and after some years in hiding in England he decided to seek political asylum in the United States.
For awhile he was left alone, met and married a young American woman, had a child with her, and on the basis of his marriage applied for permanent legal residence in the U.S.
But Germar Rudolf is a scientist and thinks like a scientist. While in the United States he continued defending both his scientific work and his right to state what he felt was accurate science. It is important to note that Germar Rudolf was a totally upstanding citizen. He did nothing that was a crime in most of the world and definitely nothing wrong or illegal in the USA.
Then on October 19, 2005, while Rudolf’s asylum case was still pending, he and his wife were order to show up at the local office of the U.S. Immigration Services for an interview, during which the validity of their marriage was to be determined. They passed that interview successfully: their marriage had been certified as genuine and valid. But then all hell broke loose. Here is how Germar describes what happened next:
“At around 11 am, after our marriage interview had been over for a while and we were waiting for the result to be announced, the door opened, the lady who had conducted the marriage interview came out, gave us our certificate and congratulated us. Then all of a sudden two other guys came up from behind her, pushed her to the side and told me that I was under arrest (no handcuffs at that point yet). I have no clue what their names were. Maybe they told me who they are, but I went into tunnel vision mode that very second (flight or fight). Only one of them ‘processed’ me, that is, interrogated me in the presence of my lawyer. I was asked whether I had ever received a request to attend an interview at the INS office in May. I said I could not remember any such request at all, and my lawyer said that we most certainly never received any such request. The guy said that my not having shown up for this interview appointment is the reason for my arrest. He next asked me to give my wallet and all valuables to my lawyer, and then the guy confiscated my (expired) German passport. My lawyer managed to talk him into checking with his superiors whether this arrest was really correct. But before checking, that guy led me to some other room to take a passport photo of me and my finger prints. When I asked him what the alleged interview appointment back in May was all about, he said that it was about making a passport photo and getting my fingerprints. I responded that this would hardly justify my arrest and deportation, since I had given my fingerprints already at the very beginning of my asylum proceedings in 2001 and because I had to file an updated passport photo every year, the last one just about the time of that alleged interview. He then stated that this had been for a different office and that they needed a set here in Chicago as well. Then the guy led us back into the hallway, withdrew and left us alone.
For an hour he talked (or tried to) with somebody in Washington. During that hour I could have just walked out of the building and left for good, but that would have been the end of my being able to ever get back into the States, I feared, so I decided, with my seven months old daughter on my arm, to stay and confront whatever was coming my way (if she hadn’t been in my life, I would have fled right there). After that hour the guy came back and basically said that he had received orders from Washington to arrest me and hold me in custody.
So I was led into one of their holding cells (6 by 6 ft perhaps, with a window). I was then given one of their jumpsuits and asked to wear that instead of my private clothes, which I had to hand in. Shortly thereafter I could talk briefly with my lawyer on the other side of that window – over a phone – re. the next steps (for instance, getting a general power of attorney for my wife). That was about noon or 1 pm or so. I was in that cell until around 3/4 pm or so, when I was led to some other part of the building where they had assembled a bunch of people, illegal immigrant, I figure, mostly Hispanics. I was handcuffed and leg-shackled onto a chain with the other guys and led to a van which drove us to Kenosha County jail across the border in Wisconsin. (If I remember correctly, we actually had a stopover at some other holding facility to pick up some more guys.) On arrival in Kenosha we got out – chained together as we were – and had to line up at a wall inside the building, were some guards checked our identities. Some of the prisoners must have been regular customers there, as the prison guards knew them well and were joking with them about this renewed encounter. I wasn’t in the mood to laugh, though. Shortly thereafter we were unchained and locked into a holding cell awaiting our ‘reception.’ The registration process took hours. Around 8 pm it was finally my turn. I had to get out of the INS jumpsuit, don their prison clothes instead, and put on a wristband with a tiny photo of mine, my registration ID and the reason for my being there. It stated in plain words: ‘non-criminal.’ Then I was finally dispatched into one of their large prison halls (44 beds), together with mostly 50% Blacks, the rest divided half and half between Whites and Hispanics. I stayed there – the only non-criminal inmate – until Nov. 14.”
While in deportation detention, Rudolf’s lawyer tried to avert his deportation by complaining to the U.S. Supreme Court that Rudolf had a constitutional right to due process: the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution grants that right to everyone present in the U.S., not just its citizens. Yet deporting Rudolf before his asylum case had been heard in court and before his motion to obtain permanent legal residence had been adjudicated would violate this right. However, the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to intervene.
Hence, 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 his scholarly research results published while in the U.S. – where they are perfectly legal. The German court claimed that these results disparage the dead and libel the living.

Andrew Allen, December 2010