THE RUDOLF REPORT

GERMAR RUDOLF · THE RUDOLF REPORTof the Landesschau of Südwest 3 TV station on December 27, 1994,the Christian-Conservative Rudolf mutated into a neo-Nazi: the trialagainst Rudolf was characterized as another case of a neo-Nazi in theStuttgart District Court, following a real trial against several NationalSocialists that had taken place in the same court a short time before. 626That the verdict was assumed to have been decided before the factbecame more and more noticeable as the question was raised whetherthere would be difficulties in convicting Rudolf of the crime he wasaccused of, as if it were not the task of the court to determine the truthwithout respect to party, but rather that it should find guilt whether ornot the crime had been committed.The Böblinger Kreiszeitung reported in this vein on May 10, 1995,as the trial was nearing its end. There, on page 13 under the headline“Sentence Before Pentecost”, one found:“He [the presiding judge] believes that the prosecuting attorney willconclude her case at the next session on May 18 of this year, and that thesentence against the chemist will be handed down before Pentecostunless something unforeseen happens.”How can it be that, according to this press report, the presidingjudge can announce before the end of the trial (it ended on June 23,1995) that the expected judgment will be against the accused, that itwill be decided to his disadvantage? It would have made sense to statethat the judgment will be given in a case or about the accused. If thejournalist here reported the presiding judge’s words correctly, thechoice of words shows the partisanship of the judge; otherwise itshows that of the journalist.It is worthwhile to note the relative emphasis the media gave tothe pleadings of the prosecution as opposed to that of the defense. OnJune 13, 1995, the StZ reported the arguments of the public attorney ina detailed 3-column story on page 2, while the defense appearance wascovered the following day in a small single-column story which merelyrecapitulated the events of the trial and did not report any of the argumentsof the accused.To be fair, it should be mentioned that after the sentence camedown on June 24, 1995, Sonnhild Maier, the journalist for the StZ,mentioned some of the defense arguments:626 The video of this program distributed by the Süddeutscher Rundfunk was correspondinglylabeled with the caption “Neo-Nazi”.392