My computer was (and still is) giving me problems - one of several reasons why I was off-line for a while. Now I am back, though only partially. Please be patient with me!

Below is a very interesting slant to challenge the atrocious legal system in Germany where the Holocaust Dogma still reigns supreme. As you will know by now, a defense for "Holocaust Denial" is simply not possible, since no mitigating evidence on one's behalf is allowed to be introduced. A judge will even threaten your defense attorney if he tries.

In Germany, you can't say "Holocaust" - and smile derisively. A political leader did that, and it cost him years in jail.

In Germany, you go to jail even if you DIDN'T say what you are expected to say, namely voice contrition for the Holocaust, as a researcher found out, who omitted the requisite kneefall before the Almighty Lobby.

For the past ten years or so, some 100,000 politically incorrect folks have either gone to jail or had to pay huge fines for political incorrect statements.

Here is one gutsy lady who tries a different approach:

Defense of Ursula Haverbeck

Appeal of the verdict of Bad Oeynhausen in the trial of Ernst Otto Cohrs and Ursula Haverbeck (AZ 14 Ns 46 Js 485/03 - C 2/04 XIV)

What I said in my defense in the Bad Oeynhausen trial of June 2004, almost two years ago, holds as well for the present appeal process: It is not about me, but about justice and truth for Germany. It is only indirectly about me, in so far as I am a German.

So, why was I indicted? Not on account of a larceny, forgery or murder, but rather because I made known my opinion respecting the latest research on Auschwitz and published this opinion in Stimme des Gewissens [Voice of Conscience].

The information imparted was based on an article by chief Spiegel editor Fritjof Meyer, which he published in the periodical Osteuropa, May 2002 under the title "Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz - Neue Erkenntnisse durch neue Archivfunde" ["The Number of Victims of Auschwitz - New Findings from Recent Archive Discoveries"].

Meyer dramatically reduced the number of victims of Auschwitz and called the crime scene into question. This did not lead to charges by the public prosecutor. That was not punishable.

There thus issues from the researches of Fritjof Meyers an exoneration of Germany.

This is pertinent in particular since all the testimonies of witnesses refer precisely to what are today still exhibited as authentic gas chambers. They are therefore completely unbelievable, especially as Leuchter and Rudolf have previously come to the same results about the "crime scene," the Auschwitz gas chambers.

Two years have passed since the trial in Bad Oeynhausen. In the meantime there have appeared important researches, such as those by Germar Rudolf in the spring of 2005, Vorlesungen über den Holocaust. Strittige Fragen im Kreuzverhör [Lectures on the Holocaust: Controversial Issues Cross-Examined]. Anyone concerned with the Holocaust, including jurists, cannot ignore this work.

Rudolf dedicates an entire chapter to Werner Maser, one of the knowledgeable on the Third Reich. He also cites Maser's book by the significant title Fälschung, Dichtung und Wahrheit über Hitler und Stalin [Falsification, Fiction and Truth about Hitler and Stalin].

Though the annihilation of the Jews is held to be among the best-researched aspects of contemporary history, this is far from the case. Indeed, entire territories are still as much as ever terra incognita, and this is because German historians make themselves scarce where it comes to getting involved in the gruesome attendant matters and where it is possible to bring details to light which are not in harmony with the representations that have been multiplied over the years. (p. 332)

The sword of Damocles hangs over historians (not only in Germany) who describe controversial facets of history as they actually were, and which themselves show officially codified ideological allegations to be falsifications of history. (p. 220)

What Maser feared, Rudolf suffered. His existence as a very promising scientist was destroyed. He evaded a long prison sentence by fleeing abroad, but then was extradited back to Germany, where he now sits imprisoned in Stammheim. A new trial awaits him.

For nearly 60 years Germany has stood under the verdict of guilty of the greatest crime of humanity, being the unique = the singular, namely, to have perpetrated the Holocaust. The central scene of this crime was and is Auschwitz.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the State Court of Bielefeld, we all as Germans are - as is repeated endlessly - implicated in this guilt. It is, moreover, irrelevant whether you believe that the German people are actually responsible for this crime, or whether you believe, as is my opinion, that, as described, it could not have taken place at all. In either case, we must have a common interest in finding the truth, since we, as Germans, are equally stigmatized by a guilt which can neither be atoned for nor forgiven in all eternity. In either case, this is how it will be forever repeated from the Jewish side, particularly at memorial events, and implacably before all the world.

In the year 2006, we must ask ourselves whether this guilty verdict is, after all the research results brought forth in the last 20 years, still to be upheld as just. Can one still speak of singularity? Is the judgment of the Federal Court of September 18, 1979, as adduced against me in the indictment, still binding on any judge today? How justified these deliberations are is shown already by the preemptive measure of introducing - now, after 60 years - a World Holocaust Memorial Day. Such a thing as this can be explained only by the general foundering of belief in the Holocaust, which it in desperation would profess.

A fair and independent court would have the duty to call for an examination of the evidence, fully independent of whatever has been heretofore thought, said, and assumed as self-evident. [The German term is "offenkundig"; its noun "Offenkundigkeit". The term is legally equivalent to "judicial notice."]

I have been charged with having denied the Holocaust. I can in no way deny it, inasmuch as I must recognize on the basis of the current state of research that a Holocaust, as a systematically planned and executed genocide, is scientifically disputed and unproven - naturally, not in the view of the accuser. I can expect and demand, in an age of realism and science, that this claim of it being self-evident be demonstrably proven. It cannot be a dogma of faith.

Moreover, a once asserted "Offenkundigkeit" has no eternal validity. This is also assumed by the Committee on Petitions of the German Bundestag [German parliament], which is grounded in the Code of Criminal Procedure and the attendant legal commentary. These I have presented to you in evidence.

Further, §130 (Incitement of the People; Volksverhetzung), which is the basis of the charge against me, does not prohibit the elucidation of crimes. It simply says there that anyone who minimizes, denies, etc. the crimes perpetrated in the Third Reich makes himself subject to penalty.

It would be an insult to German jurists to want to subject them to a general requirement to adhere still today to such mental acrobatics as presented by the French Holocaust activist Pierre Vidal-Naquet:

"One may not ask how a mass murder was possible. It was technically possible, since it took place. This is the obligatory assumption of every historical investigation on the topic. We want to only call this to memory: There is no debate over the existence of the gas chambers, and none is permissible." (Le Monde, 21 Feb 1979)

This taboo, which in 1979 could still be formulated like this, has long collapsed. In 2002, Fritjof Meyer confirmed with no challenge the research results of Fred Leuchter and Germar Rudolf that no gassing of people took place in the gas chambers exhibited at Auschwitz.

There is no forensic evidence of the Holocaust. This is indicated also in the Auschwitz verdict of the great Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, in which it is stated that there is no objective proof of the gassing (Auschwitz-Urteil, S. 109).

There are only witness testimonies, though they all relate to the untenable gas chambers and thus are fabrications or lies.

To the contrary, there have been in the meantime a good many forensic proofs that this singular crime of the Germans as presented could not have taken place. There has not taken place in a single one of the so-called Holocaust trials an ascertainment of the truth. Yet, an ascertainment of the truth, which the accuser and accused present very differently, is the task and issue of any such trial.

On that account, it is unambiguous that what goes on in the proceedings on the basis of an indictment for Holocaust denial is not a trial at all in the conventional sense. This follows readily from the way the roles are distributed to the acting persons.

1. The accused is the defender. The prosecutor has indicted me under §130 StGB [Strafgesetzbuch, the Criminal Code] (Public Incitement by Denial of the Holocaust). Yet, as already stated, I have denied nothing, not even a single one of the crimes perpetrated by the National Socialists. And only that is punishable, and that, moreover, only if it disturbs the public peace. How can the effort to find the truth disturb the public peace?

Of what is my crime supposed to consist? A crime for which on the first instance I have already been assessed the fine - which for my circumstances is very high - of 5,400 Euro? No one has yet proposed the idea that I gassed the six million; rather, there is agreement that this is brought by the Jews against the Germans, and what is more, according to the constantly promoted persuasion of the Jews, the entire German people are burdened with this guilt for all eternity.

The German people make an appearance only in individual Germans. They are part of the people, and the part in a living organism is always also the whole. That is, e.g., the presupposition for the possibility of cloning. So, we have an accuser, the Jews, and an accused, the German people.

In that, by general precepts of justice, every accused is entitled to a defender, this must also hold for the German people. I have asked myself: who actually defends the German people?

The answer is simple: all of the so-called revisionists, and all those, like myself, who take the work of their research seriously, and who, not being able so far to find any factual refutations of the arguments of the revisionists, advocate that a publicly accessible, scientific investigation of the Jewish accusation against the Germans be carried out.

That absurdly led to an indictment!

That there is something not right here is evident from the fact that exactly such a public investigation is obstructed by every means, including miscarriage of justice. In contrast to all other crimes, it is the opinion of many courts that Holocaust crimes require no proof, on the naive grounds that this crime is self-evident, despite all indicated contradictions.

Something that has taken place can be proven. Something that has not taken place, naturally, cannot be proven. Ought this be the grounds on which proof is withheld from us? In such a case, it is only proven that the Holocaust did not take place. And this is exactly what has been done by serious historians and researchers such as the chemist Germar Rudolf, whose research results I presented in evidence to you months ago for thorough examination.

If these researchers have erred, if I have drawn false conclusions from their results, then it must indeed be easiest and the most self-evident thing in the world to clarify this once and for all by a confrontation between the revisionists and the university historians. So long as this does not ensue, the old legal custom reigns: in doubt, the decision is in favor of the accused.

That the accuser has no doubt about the guilt of the accused is understandable. However, I am not persuaded, and I feel a duty to defend my accused people, as the doubts and counter-proofs expressed by people in the meantime are so numerous that they can no longer be ignored, much less not in a trial, where it should be a matter of ascertaining the truth.

Thus, I do not consider myself the accused, but am that only indirectly as a German citizen. I am here as the defender of the accused, namely, the German people.

2. Which state is the prosecutor representing as accuser? The prosecutor is German, as he otherwise wouldn't be here, although as opposed to me he is fundamentally persuaded of the rightness of the Jewish accusation. In his opinion, the German people, as well as he as a part of the same, are guilty of having perpetrated this crime. Were this not the case, he would not have accused me. Or is he acting under mandate despite better judgment?

Accordingly, for the prosecutor there is no more proof required, and indeed this plainly holds for the prosecutors in all Holocaust trials. For them the deed is self-evident because they believe in it and therein identify themselves with the accuser.

Wherever §130 (Inciting the People) under their conception is violated, wherever it is questioned what lies behind the notoriety, they step in.

To maintain the appearance of justice, the prosecutor and judge make reference to a law, which puts us in mind of the first trial handed down to us: Jesus before Pilate. Very compellingly composed by Bach in the St. John Passion, it is said by the Jews, "We have a law, and by the law he should die." With this they pressure the reluctant Roman governor.

§130 is today the law for the Jewish accuser, which in their interest they have succeeded in having put through the Bundestag. A German Bundestag would have never freely passed a paragraph for obstructing the truth in view of such a devastating accusation against the German people. But now the prosecutor, as we have established, is German and, thus, also a co-accused accessory. So how can he be the accuser? It is probably an attempt to work off a part of the perceived guilt. The prosecutors put themselves at the service of the accusers, are their delegate and representative. Or are they compelled to do this because we are still an occupied country?

So, this cannot be a matter of the German state, of the German Reich, nor even the Federal Republic of Germany. Rather, the state the prosecutor represents can only be the Israeli state. A German state or the German people are, as accused, not at all in the position to appear as accuser. A prosecutor who represented Germany could at best raise charges against the Jewish state for defamation of the German people, but not represent the charge of a foreign state against himself.

It is thus unambiguous: in all Holocaust trials, the prosecutor represents the Israeli state. It would be more fair if this happened openly and the impression were not given that it was a matter of the German state that the prosecutor represented as accuser. That is, as described, impossible.

3. The judge is accused. Also the judge in our country is self-evidently a German, probably even a German of German ancestry. (That applies as well for assistant judges and jurors.) In a regular trial, his assignment would be to discover the truth and to judge the accusation. But, as a German, he is a co-defendant. An accused cannot at the same time be the judge. He would then, so to speak, render a judgment on himself.

Now, it may be objected that as the German judge is only indirectly accused - just simply as German - he must still be in a position to adopt a neutral stance and be able to judge objectively. Nevertheless, as a part of his people, he remains accused.

Here it must once again be pointed out: The cause and basis of the accusation against me is the Jewish accusation against the German people of being responsible for the Holocaust. Because I am of the opinion, based on new and generally accessible information, that this accusation can no longer be properly upheld, and because, with respect to Auschwitz and the four million supposedly gassed there, I have spoken of an Auschwitz lie, I have been indicted. I have not been brought up on charges of having perpetrated any such crime myself.

And is it not a lie to charge a people without any proof and for decades with the gassing of four million Jews at Auschwitz? This number has been continuously reduced over the last 15 years, and has arrived at 356,000 gassed, and indeed outside of Auschwitz, and even this number need not be held as final. But nobody has yet apologized to the German people. Nobody has brought charges of defamation, and indeed defamation despite better judgment under §187 StGB, nor on account of "Disparagement of the Memory of Deceased Persons" under §189 StGB. Which is further proof that the prosecutors in Germany do not act for the German people or the German state. Otherwise this accusation long ago would have had to have been raised.

An actually neutral judge, who is independent and free to judge by the law, could do nothing for the sake of discovering the truth but to have this contentious Jewish accusation investigated.

As he is not an historian - he is a jurist - there is no choice but to draw upon experts and to bring revisionist historians into confrontation in a public debate with the independent university historians. Only in this way can it be ascertained, for example, whether the Lectures of Germar Rudolf, which have been present to the court for months for thorough examination, can be refuted or found to agree with the facts. If this does not happen, there is raised the question of the independence of the judge.

In all the trials at which I've been able to attend in the past two years it has been regarded by the respective judges as superfluous to bring in experts, on the grounds that the Holocaust is self-evident, and for that reason not in need of any proof. Therein is given unambiguous notice that the judges involved in these trials stand on the side of the accusers and have fully appropriated the accusers’ argumentation as their own. This hold as well for Frau Kurhofer-Lloyd in the local court [Amstgericht] of Bad Oeynhausen.

But, if the judge stands on the side of the accuser, he is not independent and free. He should hence be recused as prejudiced. Neither as prejudiced, which here means obliged to the accuser, nor as accused, because German, can he be at the same time judge. That is, we have in the proceedings with regards to Holocaust denial a trial without a judge, and therefore no trial. That would first be occasioned if the accuser and accused had to justify themselves before a non-German and non-Jewish judge, and thus before some member of a people who did not participate in the war against Germany, neither as its ally nor its adversary, since the Holocaust is a relic of the Second World War. This can only succeed in a country where it is not criminal to dispute the Holocaust.

4. Judicial notice ["self-evident"] in place of proof. It first becomes understandable in the light of what is described in 1-3 how it is that all the motions brought forward are rejected. I have experienced this everywhere from Berlin and Schwering to Düsseldorf, from Lüneburg to Manneheim, from Remscheid to Eisennach and Erfurt. The defense of the accused could just as well have been omitted. Neither in the final pleading of the public prosecutor nor in the judgment were they given the least substantial consideration.

Not only the public prosecutor, but also those presiding and appointed knew what was correct in advance. "We have a law!" Thus making themselves a party to it, whether out of conviction or from a relation of dependence, they came forth representing the accusation, i.e., the Jewish accuser. For them, the guilt of the German people, and thus their being implicated themselves in it, is self-evident.

That does not mean that it has to be so in Bielefeld.

As the defender of my people, I am likewise partisan, as by this I am defending myself as a part of this people, of whose singular guilt, in contrast to the public prosecutor, I am not persuaded.

Doubt about the justice of the accusation, the expressed demand for proof of it, however, is held to be criminal. So it is always expounded by the public prosecutor and the judge. Yet, the Holocaust believers fail to realize that precisely through this they provoke stronger doubts and arouse the serious suspicion that they have no proof for the accusation, for what is supposed to lie behind "self-evident".

Is there any further proof needed that with all these Holocaust proceedings it is not a matter of a legal action for determining the truth?

Because of how it was in the mentioned proceedings, the defense was of no avail. Juridical arguments and demonstrative proofs were met with a blank. To whom should they be directed? Also the rights of the citizen and the code of criminal proceedings play no role in such a tribunal (it cannot characterized otherwise).

The accused, thus the Germans, appear once as the accuser, once as the defender, once as the judge. They hardly know themselves what they actually are.

Who there would like to pass a judgment on whom?

5. What is the Holocaust, and what is it not? To avoid misunderstandings, it must for once be emphasized what is not doubted in putting the Holocaust in question.

- There were concentration camps.

- It is not disputed that a large part of the Jews, who already in 1933 had declared the holy war against Germany, were brought there during the Second World War. This happened especially after the failure of more than 40 peace offers made by Hitler to England. (You have Martin Allen Churchill's Friedensfalle there on CD).

- It is not disputed that thousands of Jews died in these concentration camps: through age, contagious diseases, difficulties of supply under war conditions, and also through ill-treatment and murder. Otherwise, how could the camp commandant for Buchenwald, Erich Koch, have been sentenced to death for his brutality and executed before the camp inmates?

These are all terrible attendant circumstances of a modern war, which, however, came forth from all sides and are by no means a German specialty - to the contrary.

What is to be understood as the Holocaust, says Frau Kurhofer-Lloyd in the judgment against Ernst-Otto Cohrs and me:

The concept of Holocaust denotes in the narrow sense the genocide carried out during the time of the National Socialists against the European Jews in Germany and in the countries occupied by them. Völkermord [literally, "murder of a people”] (Synonym of Genozid) denotes the systematic and planned annihilation of a particular human group, a people or a group of people.

This carefully planned and executed murder of a people, to which allegedly six million Jews fell as victims, is supposed to be the unique and incomparable crime against humanity by the German people, named the Holocaust.

So long as this Holocaust is not demonstrably proven, it remains indeed an unwarranted assumption. The presented new findings - and their synopsis by Germar Rudolf - rather refute it than confirm it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I do not know myself now how such a proceeding is to be carried out. But one thing is certain, that a fine or prison sentence will not overcome any doubts, will explain no incongruities. A fine or prison sentence also cannot refute or confirm attained findings.

It is only an attempt at one thing: to frighten people through anxiety and punishment away from independently thinking and researching. Indeed, doubt and the quest for truth are stronger impulses; for how else can the increasing number of trials under §130 Public Incitement be explained - after 60 years!

To conclude with a few sentences from the Introduction to the Lectures of Germar Rudolf, who currently remains incarcerated in a prison in Germany:

A chief characteristic of evil is that it forbids questions and that it taboos or outright punishes the earnest search for accurate answers. To forbid humans from questioning and seeking answers, however, means to forbid them their humanity, since the ability to doubt and seek answers to anguishing questions is certainly one of the most important characteristics distinguishing humans from animals. (Lectures, p. 10)

Conclusion

Here in this chamber world history steps into view. We act either conscious or unconscious of it. We do this in an historically pregnant place, between Teutoburger Wald and Porta Westfalica. There have already twice taken place battles, which were decisive for the future, between the powerful and - what measured against them - were the powerless, Varus the Roman against Herman the Cheruscan, Karl the Frank against Widukind the Saxon.

It was shown in the course of time in both cases that the initially powerless prevailed. Widukind's great-great-granddaughter Mathilde became the first German queen as the wife of Heinrich I, and the mother of the first German Saxon Kaiser, Otto the Great. Let us show ourselves worthy of the history of this place. In the contemporary battle what is at issue is the accusation of the Jews against the German people of having perpetrated the greatest crime against humanity, for there is nothing else behind all the trials for denial of the Holocaust. I have attempted in my defense to articulate this clearly.

The court has dismissed our motion to suspend the proceedings on the basis of prejudice until there is a clarification of the controversial questions by historians. They did this by standing on the "self-evident" dogma. But, what is self-evident is that it is not "self-evident". That is proven by numberless new research results, submissions of proof, defenses before courts, as well as Fritjof Meyer's "neue Erkenntnisse durch neue Archivfunde" and the Lectures of Germar Rudolf from the year 2005.

To this day, the Holocaust lacks the natural-scientific, unambiguously secured proof from the side of the accuser. A fact requires no law, and no false opinion will be made right by a law.

I do not accept the presumption that jurists are looking at proof of the Holocaust in the reports of suffering from concentration camp survivors, as are also still today handed around in the schools and at public events. These informants only prove that there were, and are, survivors, and that they have blooming fantasies. I recall here merely as examples three testimonies from such survivors. (G.R.S. 438 FF.)

In the Jüdische Allgemeine of September 17, 1998 under the title "Auschwitz als Phantasieland" ["Auschwitz as Fantasy Land"] by Nea Weissberg-Bob, there was treated The Case of Wilkomirski, the Desire to be a Victim.

This book about his agonizingly lived-through concentration camp hell was revealed by the research of a Jewish Swiss journalist to be a pure fiction. Wilkomirski was, as a Swiss named Bruno Boesekker, never in a concentration camp. Was his story of suffering thus a lie or just a blooming fantasy?

The second example, first reported last year in various media, including dpa [Deutsche Presse-Agentur], was very thoroughly treated in the Brazilian daily O Estado de Sao Paulo of May 15, 2005, and of course in Portugal and Spain (see also Süddeutsche Zeitung of May 12, 2005).

It was about the longtime president of the Amical de Mauthausen, Enrico Marco, known as the most prominent Spanish victim of the German National Socialist regime. Marco gave hundreds of speeches about his suffering, published an autobiography and was awarded a medal. In his autobiography and in his speeches he reported time and again about his suffering in the Flossenburg concentration camp. By inquiry in this concentration camp, these reports were shown to be a lie. He was never there. He was quietly removed as president and stricken from the list of speakers for the Holocaust Remembrance Day. Marco confessed: I lied, because people paid more attention to me (on account of it).

Yet a third example would be to refer briefly to a report in The Gazette, Montreal, August 5, 1993. The newspaper gives a thoroughly reports on a Jew, Moshe Peer, who claims to have survived five gassings in Bergen-Belsen as an eleven year-old and who has given speeches about it in Canada; of all places, in Bergen-Belsen, where really nobody asserts that there had been gas chambers. If witness testimonies of the most contradictory sort are the only proof that the accusers present, then it is understandable why they insist on notoriety and prohibition of discussion. Yet it is still not understandable how jurists can be satisfied with this.

For us Germans, to the contrary, there exists a duty to defend our people and to now finally succeed in having an objective, public discussion of the research results presented by the revisionists. These can no longer be ignored and prosecuted as criminal acts. What sort of country is it in which men earnestly striving for historical truth are sentenced to prison? The political scientist Udo Walendy, the high-school teacher Ernst Günter Kögel, the graduate chemist Germar Rudolf, the chief physician Dr. Rigolf Henning, the attorneys Horst Mahler and Manfred Roeder, the high school teacher Günter Deckert, the English historian David Irving, the French professor Dr. Robert Faurisson (in case he sets foot on German territory), the German Canadian Ernst Zündel, to cite just the best known names.

On the basis of their unpopular research results, or the publication of such, they have been declared criminal offenders. This is happening in a country which has given the highest place to freedom of research and teaching, as well as freedom of opinion and the press, in its basic law. Why are the works of the revisionists ignored, if not outright legally prosecuted? Certainly not because they are easily refuted and simply false. Then they would be exultantly taken to pieces to prove the falsity of all revisionist statements. They are forbidden only because they threaten the "self-evident" dogma, because they could set off a scientific disputation. In a word: forbidden for fear of the truth.

Indeed, a careful, scientific investigation of the arguments for and against the Holocaust is for both sides ever more pressing and indispensable. For the accused, there exists the danger of making themselves ludicrous, in the event the accusation cannot be proven; and for the accused, the clarification of the question of guilt is a necessity of survival.

This clarification is not the task of jurists. But, to demand it is as much in their interest.

If this is refused, it means the end of the science of history, and in case courts continue to convict without evidentiary argument, also the end to the dispensation of justice. I will also state the following for consideration: A punishment for denying crimes perpetrated in the Third Reich presumes that it has been clarified in the first place whether the particular crime was actually perpetrated. If that is above suspicion and undisputed, then the poor crackpot who does not grasp that would be laughed at, but not imprisoned, let alone put on trial. If this happens, the accuser proves by this only that he fears nothing more than a scientific examination of his accusation, because the proof is not there. With every new Holocaust proceeding there follows a broadening of awareness.

And so there also grows with every proceeding the hope that the subjection of justice and misinformation are recognized as the results of re-education. ["Re-education", a term introduced by the Allies, is used by Germans as a politically correct term for brainwashing.] It is thus to be expected that more and more judges are no longer disposed to violate their oath of office, but rather only to follow their conscience and the truth.

A new page in history is being turned at this moment, where judges and juries of a court declare that they assent in common with the opinion of their official colleagues such as the former presiding judge of the district State Court of Hamburg, Günther Bertram. He declared in Jungen Freiheit in February of this year: "Opinions must be asserted in the most vigorous public discussions, and defeated there, not in court." He also stated: "There is of late historiography no longer instigated by the historians, but rather ordained under threat by the state."

In opposition 19 French historians have publicly protested, where they declared that for historiography neither politics nor the judiciary are competent or appropriate. These are only two examples. Many might be given to show that judges who resolve similarly do not stand alone.

We carry a great responsibility in common as Germans. And I know that the eyes of the whole world are looking here expectantly on the State Court of Bielefeld between Teutoburger Wald and Porta Westfalica.

Ursula Haverbeck

Translated by Scott Brown, Ph.D. USA, August 12, 2006

[Ingrid's comment: I have very slightly edited this otherwise superb translation - for instance, I used the term "self-evident" for "notorious" because it better reflects the linguistic/legal meaning of the odd German word "offenkundig"]