Resistance

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORYPage 1Hans-Karsten MeierProf. Dr. Engineer… 22 Nov. 2000Re: Political Persecution of Free Expression of Opinion in the FederalRepublic of GermanyI was born in 1925 in Northern Germany and had to experience bothNazi dictatorship and war as an adolescent. Due to these experiences Ihave developed a distinct sensibility for restrictions to freedom of opinion.It has ever since been my conviction that a liberal democracy isimpossible without freedom of expression. For this reason Article 5 ofthe Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany has a special meaningfor me. It says there:Everyone has the right to freely express and disseminate his opinionin word, writing and pictures… There is no censorship.And furthermore:Art and science, research and teachings are free…!During my professional activity as a scientist, university teacher andindustrial manager, innumerable visits abroad, primarily in England andthe U.S., gave me the opportunity to consolidate my views from myown experiences. It was only when I retired in 1990, though, that I hadenough time to turn my interest to the domestic political situation inGermany.To my amazement I had to find out that research and discussion ofevents of contemporary history during Nazi Germany had found an endwith the so-called historians’ dispute. Instead of scholarly efforts withthe aim to eventually gain a conception of history as accurate as possiblefrom freely expressed contributions, be they correct or also wrong, apolitically correct dictatorship of opinion had arisen. Expressions of socalledrevisionists, initially merely stigmatized in public, were nowthreatened with prosecution as incitement of the masses etc. and wereever more aggressively persecuted.A first culmination of this persecution was caused by the investigationsof the U.S.-American Fred Leuchter. In 1990 the [German] Secretaryof Justice had still confirmed to the inquiring publisher that thiswas a scientific manuscript and that therefore no prosecution was intended.Yet already in 1992 the teacher Deckert, who had served as an329