THE RUDOLF REPORT - Holocaust Handbooks

GERMAR RUDOLF · THE RUDOLF REPORT 399
The Object of Zeal 632
6. The Media and the Case
of Germar Rudolf
When in spring 1992 Germar Rudolf sent out the first draft of his
“Expert Report on the Formation and Detectability of Cyanide Compounds
in the ‘Gas Chambers’ of Auschwitz” to a narrow circle of recipients
in 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 Ernst Remer
took a later draft of the expert report, provided it with a peppery political
preface, and then sent some 1,000 to 2,000 copies to the media, public
attorneys, politicians, and scientists, did a certain circle of the Establishment
learn of the existence of this report.
The press was quiet, except for two short articles that appeared on
May 8/9 and 13, 1993, in the Wiesbadener Kurier reporting on the embarrassment
the expert report had caused to the chemical analysis Institute
Fresenius hired by Rudolf, located in Taunusstein near Wiesbaden,
and an announcement in the Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung of May 14,
1993, that a certain Prof. L. Bisky had filed a criminal complaint. Finally,
in spring 1994, when the Labor Court heard the case between Rudolf
and his former employer, the Max-Planck-Institute for Solid State Research
at Stuttgart, which ended with a compromise, the DPA (German
Press Agency) issued a press release that appeared in many newspapers
and even 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 at
that time, there appeared mostly factual police notices, reporting that
the State Security Department of the Criminal Police of Baden-
Württemberg 633 for various reasons had ordered house-searches (Sep-
632 First published in German in Staatsbriefe 2-3/1996, pp. 23-30.
633 The uninitiated reader may be unaware that in Germany there is a division of the Criminal
Police 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-wing extremist,
left-wing extremist, and foreign-influenced political crimes, respectively. Those employed
in one department tend to have a political opinion hostile to their target group. For example,
those in the right-wing extremist department tend to have left-wing, anti-fascist orientations. In
addition, the German Federal court system includes State Security Chambers whose only work
is to punish politically motivated crimes. The prosecutors who work in these courts were politically
trained to deal with such crimes.