THE RUDOLF REPORT

GERMAR RUDOLF · THE RUDOLF REPORTto avoid being confronted with questions from the media. Rudolf wasseen by Institute workers, however, and they reported his presence tothe executive director.Second Step: Professional RuinRudolf had neglected to ask his doctoral supervisor for permissionto enter the Institute. The following day he was asked to accept terminationof his employment contract without notice. 656 The justificationfor this was primarily that Rudolf had sent letters on stationary withthe Max-Planck-Institute letterhead while working on the Report. Rudolfhad privately engaged the Fresenius Institute to analyze the wallsamples from Auschwitz for traces of cyanide. But when the FreseniusInstitute was already working on his samples in Rudolf’s presence, hehanded in a letter typed on a letter head of his employer with a detailedspecification of the work to be conducted by the Fresenius Institute anda detailed description of the samples. Though the unauthorized use ofofficial letterheads for private purposes was widespread at the Max-Planck-Institute at the time, in Rudolf’s case it became a no-no. It wasthis use of Institute letterhead, about which the management of the Institutefirst became aware through news reports, 657 that established theconnection of the Institute with the Rudolf Report.Apparently because of the failure of the MPG to respond to the intercessionof I. Bubis (see above), on June 22, 1993, the Zentralrat derJuden in Deutschland (Central Council of Jews in Germany) felt itnecessary to notify the President of the MPG that he was expected totake appropriate measures to restrict the activities of Report researcherGermar Rudolf. On July 14, 1993, the President of the MPG informedthe Central Council that the MPG had no further responsibility for theactivities of Herr Rudolf, since he had been fired.The subsequent labor court proceeding instituted by Rudolfagainst the Max-Planck-Institute with respect to his termination withoutnotice turned on the question, whether the generally-practiced andin his case already known infraction “private use of official letterhead”could be used as grounds for dismissal without notice when theAuschwitz issue was mixed in. Labor court judge Stolz made it clear656 This description is based on the transcript of Rudolf’s testimony from memory from this time,Computer Data File 2, (District Court Stuttgart, ref. 17 KLs 83/94), 175-220.657 Wiesbadener Kurier on 8./9. and 13. May 1993.408