Ursula Hedwig Meta Haverbeck-Wetzel (néeWetzel; 8 November 1928 – 20 November 2024) was a German neo-Nazi activist from Vlotho.[1][2] Since 2004, she had been the subject of multiple lawsuits and convictions for Holocaust denial, which is a criminal offense in Germany.
In November 2015, at the age of 87, she was sentenced to ten months' imprisonment for Holocaust denial.[3] Several additional convictions in the fall of 2016 led to further such sentences. She unsuccessfully appealed all sentences, and on 7 May 2018 began to serve her latest two-year jail sentence after being picked up at her home by German police.[4][5][6] Released from a prison in Bielefeld at the end of 2020, she was quickly charged again, faced a new trial in March 2022, and was sentenced to one year in prison.[7][8] She was again convicted on 26 June 2024 and sentenced to an additional 16 months in jail.[9]
In 1992, Haverbeck-Wetzel became first chairperson of the newly founded Memorial Sites Association (German: Verein Gedächtnisstätte e.V.), remaining in that position until 2003.[2] The registered association was established in May 1992 with the statute to build a dignified remembrance for the German civilian victims of World War II by bombing, abduction, expulsion and detention centres, to end "the unjustified unilateral nature of the view of history and struggle to overcome the [negatives of the] past" (German: um "die ungerechtfertigte Einseitigkeit der Geschichtsbetrachtung und Vergangenheitsbewältigung" zu beenden).[2]
Right-wing extremism
Well before Germany's reunification in 1990, Haverbeck-Wetzel cultivated connections to neo-Nazi political groups like the NPD (National Democratic Party of Germany) with the aim of a major national collective movement in Germany. This orientation intensified in the years following. It was probably via this path that around 2000 she became acquainted with the neo-Nazi lawyer Horst Mahler. From this she became active as member and deputy director of the "Society for the Rehabilitation of Those Persecuted for Refutation of the Holocaust" (German Verein zur Rehabilitierung der wegen Bestreitens des Holocaust Verfolgten [de]),[2] which was founded in Vlotho on 9 November 2003, the anniversary of the Kristallnacht, and is chaired by the Swiss Holocaust denier Bernhard Schaub. Additionally, other Holocaust deniers, including Ernst Zündel (Canada), Robert Faurisson (France), Jürgen Graf (Switzerland), Gerd Honsik (Austria), Fredrick Töben (Australia), Germar Rudolf, Wilhelm Stäglich, Andres Studer, Hans-Dietrich Sander, Manfred Roeder, Frank Rennicke and Anneliese Remer were also involved in its establishment. The organization was banned in May 2008 by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior (Bundesministerium des Innern) on the grounds of being hostile to the constitution of Germany.[12]
Publication and other offenses
2004–2014
In June 2004, the district court of Bad Oeynhausen sentenced Haverbeck to a €5,400 fine (180 days at €30 each) for incitement to hatred and Holocaust denial.[1][13] In the house journal of the Collegium Humanum, the Voice of Conscience (Stimme des Gewissens), she had introduced a form of denial of the Holocaust,[13] together with the editor of the magazine, Ernst-Otto Cohrs.[14] The two incriminated publication issues were subsequently confiscated by the German authorities. In a subsequent issue of the Voice of Conscience it was again claimed that the mass destruction of the Jews was "a myth". Packaged in a citation by the Russian newspaper Russkiy Vestnik (the Russian Messenger) who had published in Russia a special revisionist analysis issue of Jürgen Graf's work, with the special Russkiy Vestnik issue later cited favourably in Moscow's newspaper Pravda by Valentin Prussakov,[citation needed] it was alleged that the number of Jewish victims of National Socialism did not amount to six million, but to "only" about 500,000. On 10 March 2005, the court found a second case against Haverbeck-Wetzel and Cohrs. However, at the request of the Bielefeld Public Prosecutors Office the case was closed since "it was immaterial compared to another".[15]
Another article by Haverbeck-Wetzel in the Voice of Conscience (November/December 2005) posited a thesis that Adolf Hitler was "just not to be understood from the believed Holocaust or his alleged war obsession, but only by a divine mission in the world-historical context". This triggered a renewed process for Holocaust denial, and in June 2007 another fine of 40 days at €30 each by the Dortmund Regional Court.[1] Altogether a total fine of €6,000 (200 days at €30 each) was formed.[citation needed]
In June 2009, the District Court of Bad Oeynhausen found Haverbeck-Wetzel guilty of offending Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, who had earlier publicly advocated censorship of the Collegium Humanum Holocaust-deniers tools.[1][16] According to a 1 July 2009 newspaper article in Mindener Tageblatt [de], Haverbeck-Wetzel wrote in her open letter response for the attention of Knobloch, among other things, Knobloch should not "interfere in German domestic affairs", if Knobloch does not like it in Germany, then she could "return to her origin in Inner Asia", and: "You do not have to live in Germany— in this evil land, where, as you say, six million of you were gassed."[1][16] Her open letter also contained hostility such as "Prepare yourself for the day of truth [... it] is near and unstoppable", as well as "I warn you [... if] you continue as before, then a new pogrom could result, which would be horrific".[1][16] Knobloch subsequently filed a criminal complaint, and Haverbeck-Wetzel was sentenced to a fine of €2,700.[16]
2014–2024
In November 2014, Haverbeck-Wetzel lodged a police complaint against the Central Council of Jews in Germany. She accused the council of "persecution of innocent people". The investigation was abandoned in December 2014. The Bielefeld Public Prosecutors Office eventually examined proceedings against Haverbeck-Wetzel for false accusation.[17]
In the ARD television broadcast series Panorama produced by NDR in March 2015, and despite proceedings prohibiting, Haverbeck-Wetzel again denied the mass destruction of the Jews and discussed her views.[18] She described "this Holocaust" as "the biggest and most persistent lie in history".[19][20][18][21] Haverbeck-Wetzel published a video on YouTube protesting against the trial of Oskar Gröning, the so-called "Accountant of Auschwitz", and distributed leaflets outside the court which were reported to feature Holocaust denial.[22][23]
Haverbeck-Wetzel became the subject of a new investigation initiated in June 2015 by the Bielefeld Public Prosecutors Office, in connection with a publication in the journal The Voice of the Empire (Die Stimme des Reiches), prompting Haverbeck-Wetzel's home as well as that of three other accused persons to be searched by the State Criminal Police Office of Lower Saxony (Landeskriminalamt Niedersachsen) for evidence.[24] In November, after being found guilty, she was sentenced to ten months in prison.[3][25] In the Hamburg court, she insisted the status of Auschwitz as a place of death is "not historically proven" and is "only a belief".[26]
In September 2016, Haverbeck-Wetzel was sentenced to ten months imprisonment for Holocaust denial, without the option for parole, but remained free until an appeal was heard concerning the earlier case. She had written to Detmold's mayor, Rainer Heller, the previous February, insisting that Auschwitz was no more than a labour camp, and that those who survived were only "alleged witnesses"; that was after the trial of former Auschwitz SS guard Reinhold Hanning.[27][28]
In October 2016, she was sentenced to 11 months in Bad Oeynhausen for incitement to hate. In court again the next month, Haverbeck-Wetzel was sentenced in Verden to 21⁄2 more years in jail for Holocaust denial, after restating her claims in Voice of the Reich (Stimme des Reiches).[29]
In June 2024, Haverbeck stood trial in Germany for incitement to hatred.[30] She was convicted on 26 June 2024 and sentenced to an additional 16 months in jail.[9] Haverbeck died on 20 November 2024, at the age of 96.[31][32][33]
Publications
Non-fiction
Werner G. Haverbeck: Der Weltkampf um den Menschen. Eine deutsche Selbstbesinnung (The world struggle for the man. A German self-reflection), Grabert Verlag, Tuebingen 1995, ISBN9783878471516
Werner G. Haverbeck: Der Weltkampf um die Gemeinschaft. Die Entwicklung der Demokratie zur Volksordnung (The world struggle for the community. The development of democracy into a people's order), Grabert Verlag, Tübingen 1996, ISBN9783878471547
with Martin Black, Claudio Mutti, Wolfgang Schüler, Oliver Ritter (eds.): Religion und Tradition (Religion and Tradition), Verlag Zeitenwende, Dresden 2002, ISBN9783934291157
^ abcdefNiedersächsische Verfassungsschutzbericht 2012 [Lower Saxony Protection of the Constitution Report 2012] (PDF) (in German), Hannover: Niedersächsische Ministerium für Inneres und Sport (Lower Saxony Ministry of Interior and Sport), 2012, pp. 87, 102, 105, 107, retrieved 1 August 2015
^Jürgen Wüst, Konservatismus und Ökologiebewegung: eine Untersuchung im Spannungsfeld von Partei, Bewegung und Ideologie am Beispiel der Ökologisch-Demokratischen Partei (ÖDP), IKO 1993, S. 165
^Letters between the branches of ÖDP in Bremen and North Rhine-Westphalia 1988-1989 (in German)
^ abcdPlöger, Oliver (1 July 2009). "Neue Strafe für Ursula Haverbeck-Wetzel" [New penalty for Ursula Haverbeck-Wetzel]. Mindener Tageblatt (in German). Minden. Archived from the original on 3 July 2009. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
^Eine Lüge zu viel, auf Juedische-Allgemeine.de; retrieved, 24 April 2015.
