Resistance

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORYYet that is exactly the way one argued during my case in 1994/95in Stuttgart, when I was sentenced to 14 months imprisonment formy expert report, and the same pattern of argumentation can befound again in my present indictment. If the prohibition to contradictwitnesses were to be elevated to a universal law, then the lightswould go out quickly in this country! Or more general still: if nothingcould be said anymore because somebody feels insulted or attackedin a mere subjective way, then speaking as such would probablyhave to be prohibited.d. Already the Third Reich imprisoned peaceful dissidents in concentrationcamps because their views were capable “of disturbing publicpeace.” The Catholic priest Mayer, for instance, was publicly indictedbecause with his sermons he “repeatedly made public, incitingstatements” and because he had discussed matters of the state “in away capable of endangering public peace.” 155It may be interesting in this context that in the mid-thirties RupertMayer was expelled from the Cartel Association of Catholic GermanStudent Fraternities following pressure from “above.” In 1994 I wasexpelled from the same association as well following pressure from“above” due to my allegedly “disturbing public peace.”It goes without saying that there are also considerable differencesbetween us, for Rupert Mayer was later canonized by the CatholicChurch, to which I attach no importance at all, as I have left theCatholic Church.(At this point State Prosecutor Grossmann makes the followingmeaningful interjection: “Oh, come on, don’t assume such an air of importance,Mr. Rudolf!”)Hypothetically every opinion which massively contradicts the PowersThat Be or the reigning zeitgeist is capable of disturbing the publicpeace under certain circumstances. This undefined term is thereforesuited to suppress every political, scientific, or social dissent. In order toprevent such an arbitrary, despotic interpretation, it must be stipulatedthat the capability of disturbing the public peace must derive directlyfrom the statements at hand in order to be prosecutable. This means thatthe statement has to actively call for or contribute to the disturbance ofthe public peace, for instance by calling for armed riots, pogroms, re-155 Otto Gritschneder (ed.), Ich predige weiter. Pater Rupert Mayer und das Dritte Reich, RosenheimerVerlag, Rosenheim 1987, p. 89.139