THE RUDOLF REPORT

11. HUNTING GERMAR RUDOLF11.5. The Media and the Case of Germar RudolfThe Object of Zeal 606When in spring 1992 Germar Rudolf sent out the first draft of his“Expert Report on the Formation and Detectability of Cyanide Compoundsin the ‘Gas Chambers’ of Auschwitz” to a narrow circle of recipientsin science and politics, several historians responded with interest.The media, however, received no notice of the existence of the report.Only in spring 1993, when retired Major General Otto ErnstRemer took a later draft of the expert report, provided it with a pepperypolitical preface, and then sent some 1,000 to 2,000 copies to the media,public attorneys, politicians, and scientists, did a certain circle ofthe Establishment learn of the existence of this report.The press was quiet, except for two short articles that appeared onMay 8/9 and 13, 1993, in the Wiesbadener Kurier reporting on the embarrassmentthe expert report had caused to the chemical analysis InstituteFresenius hired by Rudolf, located in Taunusstein near Wiesbaden,and an announcement in the Märkische Allgemeinen of May 14, 1993,that a certain Prof. L. Bisky had filed a criminal complaint. Finally, inspring 1994, when the Labor Court heard the case between Rudolf andhis former employer, the Max-Planck-Institute for Solid State Researchat Stuttgart, which ended with a compromise, the dpa (German PressAgency) issued a press release that appeared in many newspapers andeven on the radio. That prompted the ARD (German Public Broadcasting)television program Report to make a witch-hunt broadcast.In the regional press of the Stuttgart area, where Rudolf resided atthat time, there appeared mostly factual police notices, reporting thatthe State Security Department of the Criminal Police of Baden-Württemberg 607 for various reasons had ordered house-searches (Sep-606 Appeared in Staatsbriefe 2-3/1996, Verlag Castel del Monte, Postfach 14 06 28, 80456 Munich,pp. 23-30.607 The uninitiated reader may be unaware that in Germany there is a division of the CriminalPolice called the State Security Department which prosecutes politically motivated crimes.This department, by far the largest of the criminal offices, has separate areas for right-wingextremist, left-wing extremist, and foreign-influenced political crimes, respectively. Thoseemployed in one department tend to have a political opinion hostile to their target group. Forexample, those in the right-wing extremist department tend to have left-wing, anti-fascist ori-383