THE RUDOLF REPORT

11. HUNTING GERMAR RUDOLFall. It was a motley group resulting in an unholy chaos. But among usstudents in Frankfurt, where I completed work for my diploma thesisand later performed my compulsory military service, 538 this plate ofmixed vegetables was intellectually very fruitful. In the newly foundedRepublikaner university organization, we had one former member ofthe liberal party FDP, one from the socialist party SPD, one from theconservative ecologist party ÖDP, 539 three from the semi-conservativeCDU, and many who were active for the first time. During this time,we were flooded with new ideas and discussed controversial issues asnever before.In this Frankfurt period, which ended in late 1990, I read nearly200 books, mostly during my ‘loafer-service’ in the Bundeswehr: Iread right-wing and left-wing books, books from the middle-of-theroad,and books without any political viewpoint. It was one of the besttimes I have ever experienced. It was like preparing for an intellectualbreak-out.…but instead into the offsideOur interest in involvement with the Republikaner party disappeareddue to the fact that it was extremely anti-academic, both in itsranks and leadership. We had to let ourselves be mocked and calledgreenhorns and academic egg-heads by other members, and the workof our high-school organization was torpedoed by the Republikanerleadership which led to our resignation. From 1990 onwards, the Republikanerparty has concerned itself mostly with internal conflicts;since every initiative for constructive work was received with maliciouscriticism, I resigned in the summer of 1991, about nine monthsafter my relocation to Stuttgart in order to start my PhD studies.A concentration camp inmate…Now back to the question of how I became a revisionist. Certainlyin the beginning of my second involvement with the Republikaner, Iwas repeatedly confronted with the use of the ‘Auschwitz bludgeon’used against both ‘my’ party and myself. I have mentioned above thescandalous question of the journalist after the Berlin election, a questionwhich was used continually to suggest that the Republikaner—538 In Germany, military service is compulsory for all men physically fit to do so.539 Ökologisch Demokratische Partei, Ecological Democratic Party.307