Resistance

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORYsionist theses on the Holocaust were declared an “official offense.” Eversince the German authorities have been obligated by law to prosecuterevisionists for their published theses, which are considered to be “libelof the Jews” or “disparagement of the commemoration of the deceased,”and this even if no criminal complaint by any person directlyaffected had been filed.The second, much more drastic restriction of free speech followed in1994 as a result of the first round of trials against the then nationalchairman of the German National Democratic Party Günter Deckert, theoutcome of which had been deemed a scandal by media and politicians.In that year a special law was introduced during the revision of article130 of the German Penal Code, which, for the first time in German judicialhistory, expressly aims at the suppression of only one particularopinion about only one certain topic. Yet inevitably this, too, had to bea helpless and useless attempt to get an authoritarian handle against thepatriotism and nationalism which had been surging after the reunificationin all of Germany, against the escalating xenophobia in the new,former communist Länder caused by social tensions, and finally alsoagainst the expansion and dramatic increase of revisionist activitiesdeep into mainstream society after the publication of the Leuchter Report.This was succeeded shortly thereafter by another attack on civilrights by the so-called “great eavesdropping attack,” that is, the government’sattempt to get sweeping authorities to tap just about anythingand anybody they deem suspicious – a suggested law which later on hadto be somewhat trimmed down.After 11 September 2001, the – for Germany only alleged – threat ofterrorism had to once more justify the continued curtailing of civilrights.Since the social problems and demographic tensions in the easternparts of today’s Germany could not be solved by penal law, that is tosay, because the right-wing political opposition had not disappeared, thethumbscrews were tightened even more in 2005 by adding a specialoffense to article 130 of the German Penal Code. The debate about thisnew restriction to freedom of speech in the German parliament clearlyindicates that this was a measure permitting the specific and exclusiveprosecution of revisionist historical dissidents and politicians of the142 Named after the then German secretary of justice.118