Ernst Zundel - Updated biographical information

Thu Sep 22 08:04:30 EDT 2005

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Mark Weber, Director of the Institute for Historical Review, has done 
a beautiful job updating  a biographical essay on Ernst.  I am 
sending you the text, but if you would like to see some of the 
photos, go to http://www.revisionists.com/revisionists/zundel.html

I will still be very busy for a few days, but starting next week, I 
hope to work my media connections to get some coverage of Ernst's 
upcoming trial.  Those of you who have already contacted me, stay 
tuned.  Those who would like to become part of history by being "on 
location", as Ernst likes to say, send me a message and ask for a 12 
minute promo about the meaning of the first two Great Holocaust 
Trials - and by inference, the Mannheim trial that is to start on 
November 8.

Here is one of the bravest man on earth, facing down the forces that 
mean to do us harm:

[START]

Ernst Zundel
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Ernst Zundel, a German-born publisher, author and civil rights 
activist, is a towering figure in the worldwide Holocaust revisionist 
movement. For more than two years he has been held behind bars, first 
in Canada and now in Germany , solely for the peaceful expression of 
non-conformist views. He is the most prominent political prisoner in 
the western world today. He is the author of countless booklets, 
newsletters and essays. He is a prodigious publisher, a  one-man 
public relations firm, and an able public speaker and organizer. 
Energetic, tenacious and courageous, he is dauntless in struggle 
against apparently insurmountable odds and seemingly invincible 
adversaries.

Ernst Zundel was born on April 24, 1939, in a small town in the Black 
Forest region of southwestern Germany . He emigrated to Canada at the 
age of 19, where he soon married and became the father of two sons. 
His career as a graphic artist was successful, with his work 
appearing, for example, on the front cover of Canada 's national news 
magazine, Maclean's.

Setting aside his thriving career, he dedicated himself to the great 
task, as he saw it, of redeeming the sullied reputation of his fellow 
Germans. Through his Samisdat publishing house he distributed 
worldwide a prodigious quantity of books, booklets, leaflets, 
newsletters, and audio and video cassettes. Simon Wiesenthal, the 
well-known "Nazi hunter," called Zundel the world's number one 
distributor of allegedly dangerous literature and cassettes.

Zundel is probably best known for his central role in the "Holocaust 
Trials" of 1985 and 1988. He was brought to court in Toronto on a 
charge of "publishing false news," and specifically for publishing a 
reprint edition of a booklet entitled Did Six Million Really Die?.

Zundel's two lengthy trials - the 1985 trial lasted two months, and 
the 1988 trial lasted four months - have been the closest thing 
anywhere to full scale debates on the Holocaust issue. For the first 
time ever, "Holocaust survivors" and Holocaust historians were 
closely and critically questioned under oath about their claims and 
views.

To wage the legal battle that was forced upon him, he brought 
together an impressive international team of revisionist scholars, 
legal specialists, researchers, and many others. From numerous 
libraries and archives in North America and Europe , this group 
assembled at "Zundelhaus" one of the most impressive collections of 
evidence anywhere on this chapter of history.

Among those who testified on Zundel's behalf in the trials were 
Robert Faurisson, David Irving, Mark Weber, William Lindsey, Udo 
Walendy, and Bradley Smith. As a result of the two trials, an 
enormous quantity of compelling evidence refuting the Holocaust 
extermination story was presented to the court and thereby was made 
part of the permanent public record. Perhaps the most important of 
this evidence was the historic testimony of American gas chamber 
expert Fred Leuchter about his on-site forensic examination of the 
alleged extermination gas chambers in Poland .

Zundel was found guilty in the 1985 trial, but the verdict was set 
aside by the provincial appeals court. It ruled that the judge in 
that trial had, among other things, given improper instructions to 
the jury, and had improperly excluded defense evidence. In May 1988, 
at the conclusion of the second Zundel trial, the jury declared him 
guilty. A few days later, he was sentenced to nine months 
imprisonment.

On appeal, Canada 's Supreme Court threw out the conviction, 
declaring on August 27, 1992, that the archaic "false news" law under 
which he had been convicted was a violation of the country's Charter 
of Rights. This was not only a personal vindication by Canada 's 
highest court; Ernst Zundel secured an important victory for the 
rights of all Canadians.

Zundel's next great legal battle was fought out before the Canadian 
Human Rights Tribunal in Toronto on charges, instigated by Jewish 
groups, of promoting "hatred or contempt" against Jews through the 
"Zundelsite" Internet web site (www.zundelsite.org), operated by 
Ingrid Rimland from the United States. In this legal action, as the 
Tribunal's presiding Commissioner declared, the truth or validity of 
the supposedly "hateful" items was not a consideration. (Ultimately 
the Tribunal declared the "Zundelsite" to be unlawful, but because 
the site is based in the US , the ruling is unenforceable.)

During the 42 years he lived in Canada , Ernst Zundel was never 
convicted of a crime. He was, however, repeatedly a victim of 
violence and hate. He survived three assassination attempts, 
including by arson and pipe bomb. He's also endured years of legal 
harassment and repeated jailings.

After more than four decades in Canada , including a failed effort to 
acquire Canadian citizenship, he moved to the United States , where 
in January 2000 he married Ingrid Rimland.

His wife, a gifted writer and noted author in her own right, was born 
in an ethnic German Mennonite community in Ukraine . As a child she 
and her family were victims of Soviet rule and the ravages of World 
War II. After the war she lived for a time in Paraguay and Canada , 
and then for years in California . Ingrid Rimland holds a doctoral 
degree in education, and is a naturalized US citizen.

On February 5, 2003, Ernst Zundel was arrested at their quiet home in 
the mountain region of eastern Tennessee . He was seized on the 
pretext that he had violated immigration reg-ulations, or had missed 
an interview date with US immigration authorities, even though he had 
entered the US legally, was married to an American citizen, had no 
criminal record, and was acting diligently, and in full accord with 
the law, to secure status as a permanent legal resident.

After being held for two weeks, he was deported to Canada . For two 
years -- from mid-February 2003 to March 1, 2005 - he was held in 
solitary confinement in the Toronto West Detention Centre, on the 
pretext that he is a threat to national security.

His arrest and detention generated wide media attention. A few 
Canadian newspapers, including Toronto 's prestigious Globe and Mail, 
and several independent analysts, acknowledged the injustice of his 
incarceration on an empty pretext.

Among those who protested Zundel's unjust treatment was Bill Dunphy, 
a veteran investigative journalist and editor for the daily Hamilton 
Spectator. He spent six years probing Canada 's "white supremacist" 
movement, and got to know Zundel personally. Although he has no 
sympathy for Zundel's views, in a hard-hitting column (Hamilton 
Spectator, May 14, 2003) he told readers:

"Our government has seized and branded Ernst Zundel, stripped him of 
his human rights, tried him in secret and found him wanting, and will 
now hand him over to a foreign government anxious to throw him in 
jail...

"... Zundel - who did this country a favour by wiping off the books 
our disgraceful False News laws - has never once been convicted of a 
criminal offence in this country, never once found to have violated 
the hate crime laws that rest snugly around the throat of free 
expression in this country.

"Calculating correctly that there was no political cost, no 'down 
side' to slipping on the jackboots to kick a reviled old man out of 
our country, our government cobbled together their best insults and 
innuendo, and Lord knows what secret 'evidence,' and branded Ernst 
Zundel a threat to national security.

"I know this man, his local and international contacts and I know 
this movement. And after reading the 58-page 'unclassified' summary 
of the government's case, I can assure you there is no justice here. 
Their 'evidence' is riddled with errors and misinformation, hearsay 
and inflammatory innuendo. Dead men walk again, and the shattered 
bits of shoddy secret networks long since collapsed under the weight 
of their own ineptitude are made whole and menacing once again. It is 
a shameful piece of dishonest, unreliable tripe."

The Canadian Association for Free Expression (CAFE), a free speech 
advocacy group, fought for Zundel's release. "Mr. Zundel is quite 
literally a political prisoner," said CAFE director Paul Fromm, who 
also served as Zundel's legal representative in his detention 
hearings. "He is being held in solitary confinement solely for the 
non-violent expression of his political views."

The allegation that Zundel might be a threat to national security "is 
mischievous nonsense," said Fromm. "Zundel has been politically 
active in Canada for 40 years. He's a public figure. His writings and 
speeches are available on-line. He's been investigated for years by 
the police. He's an open book. Zundel has never advocated or 
practised violence, nor have his followers," Fromm added. "He's a 
pacifist and a publisher."

Zundel was held in Canada not because his views are unpopular, or 
because he was a "security risk." He was in prison there because 
Jewish groups wanted him there, and because he promoted views that 
the Jewish-Zionist lobby considers harmful to its interests.

This lobby is the decisive, critical factor in the decades-old 
campaign to silence him. The only sustained and institutionalized 
effort to imprison Zundel has come from this lobby, which includes 
the Simon Wiesenthal Center , the Canadian Jewish Congress, the 
Canadian Holocaust Remembrance Association, and the League for Human 
Rights of B'nai B'rith (with the Anti-Defamation League, its 
counterpart in the US ).

On March 1, 2005, Zundel was deported to Ger-many , just as Jewish 
groups had been demanding. Since then he has been held in the 
Mannheim prison were he faces years of imprisonment for the "thought 
crime" of "denying the Holocaust." ("Holocaust denial" is against the 
law in Germany , France , Switzerland and some other European 
countries.)

On June 29, 2005, the public prosecutor in Mannheim formally charged 
Zundel with inciting "hatred" by having written or distributed texts 
that "approve, deny or play down" genocidal actions carried out by 
Germany's wartime regime, and which "denigrate the memory of the 
[Jewish] dead. The first and foremost of the writings cited in the 
indictment are texts posted on the "Zundelsite" website, which is 
registered and maintained by his wife in the United States, where all 
such writings are entirely legal.

The indictment warned that  Zundel could be punished with four years 
imprisonment. Trial is set to begin on November 8, 2005.

Ernst Zundel, who sometimes describes himself as a "Swabian peasant," 
is an outgoing, good-humored man who is blessed with a rare 
combination of unflagging optimism and practical ability. He 
maintains this infectious spirit even under very trying conditions. 
He is an unusually alert and sensitive individual with a keen 
understanding of human nature. He knows how to persuade, cajole and 
encourage others to give their best for the greater good. He inspires 
confidence, loyalty and affection.

Of this remarkable man, Robert Faurisson wrote in 1988: "Zundel may 
once again go to prison for his research and beliefs or be threatened 
with deportation. All this is possible. Anything may happen when 
there is an intellectual crisis and a realignment of historical 
concepts of such a dimension. Revisionism is the great intellectual 
adventure of the end of this century. Whatever happens, Ernst Zundel 
is already the victor."
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For more about Ernst Zundel, the injustice against him, and the 
worldwide campaign to secure his freedom, see the Zundelsite, 
including "David Against Goliath".