Additional Court Summary and Zundel Commentary

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

Summary and Zundel commentary about the last two court hearings, July 
28 and August 4, in Mannheim, but first this:

Apparently there is nothing to be relayed about the hearing on August 
4.  It lasted only half a day and was reported to me, again, as 
"grindingly boring."  No questions or topics whatsoever of any 
political significance pertaining to this case are allowed!  Imagine 
you are a defense attorney in a burglary trial in which you cannot 
mention "burglary"  - or else, YOU go to jail! - because the burglars 
wrote the laws and thus control the court!

As I have said before, this avoiding of the taboo may be a 
prosecution tactic to keep Zundel supporters away from the court 
room, who in the beginning, came great distances and at considerable 
cost and inconvenience to themselves to show their support of the man 
they admire and have assisted for decades. 

The following assessment of the courtroom ambience from the hearing 
days before, particularly July 28, might be of interest to you and is 
certainly valuable to be recorded for history, as summarized by Ernst 
Zundel in a letter to me:

[START]

Quick news from Mannheim!  Today was another court day - Ingrid, it 
was a sad and sobering day.  Not for me - there is nothing that 
surprises me any longer about this place and the people who make up 
the bureaucracy of this creation. 

I had prepared pages of questions based on the documents available to 
me.  I had written different colored notes, as I have done for all 
the other witnesses and topics.  Once again, virtually none of the 
questions that I had searched out, marked in the approximate 500 
pages in three-ring binders, explained with stick-on notes of 
relevance, discussed during breaks or during lulls in the proceedings 
were asked. (...) It is not even malice.  I think I finally have to 
admit that this is what has happened to our people in the face of 
organized evil. 

That's the same reaction I encountered with people from the former 
communist countries of the DDR, Soviet Union, Poland, Yugoslavia, and 
Bulgaria when I visited those places.  There is a stoic, almost 
automaton-like interaction where the roles assigned and expected to 
be followed are largely followed, and all the participants pretty 
much seem to have a sixth sense of where the edges of the playpen 
are.  For me, the unorthodox, creative thinker and operator, it's as 
if I was experiencing one of those slow motion nightmares from which 
one awakens, bathed in sweat, panting, heart pounding.  Only today it 
was not a bad dream - it was an all-too-sad reality.

Attorney Rieger was not here.  He told me last week he could not make 
it, so the two government-appointed lawyers were there.  But they 
told me early on they were not going to ask any questions on the 
"forbidden topic." 

In case you wonder who the two government witnesses were - one was 
Kriminalhauptkommissar Koelsch, and the other one was former State 
Prosecutor Klein. 

Ingrid, Koelsch, like Maurer and Kuhl before him, are simply German 
bureaucrats, time-servers who have really very, very little elbow 
space and original initiative.  They can be compared to low-echelon 
Befehlsempfänger/recipients of orders to be carried out, like every 
system produces - except that these Germans seemed a little more worn 
out, resigned, as if their inner flame had petered out a long time 
ago.  Extinguished soul-wise! 

In reading about them - their assessments, notes, letters in the 
files - I had of course my private thoughts about this modern form of 
cogs in the wheel.  When I encountered them, I could not even muster 
dislike, I could not even bring myself to feel revulsion about their 
roles in all this.   It may sound strange to you, Ingrid, but I felt 
no resentment, no anger  - only pity for them and an infinite sadness 
for Germany.  No wonder this country is failing in so many sectors 
and stagnating in others! 

Ex-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt said in a TV interview that the Germans 
had lost their vitality, and these apparatschiks demonstrated that 
with their sluggish movements, their tired, worn-out body language, 
their emotionless bearing, their dead, echo-chamber-like [voices]. 
Ingrid, I pitied them from the bottom of my heart.  Compared to their 
miserable, autopilot-like careers, you and I have led incredibly 
interesting, varied, stimulating lives.  They are like tiny, 
anonymous, colorless ants!

Hans-Heiko Klein, the self-professed Überzeugungstäter/fanatic 
ideologue - Ingrid, Klein was a very, very big disappointment, even 
to me, his victim!  Imagine that!  I actually felt sad for Dr. 
Meinerzhagen and his colleague, Judge Hamm.  Klein was utterly 
unprofessional!  There he sat, bulldog-faced, deep growl, hardly 
understandable because he swallowed his words, mumbling, not talking 
into the microphone - not that it mattered much, Ingrid, the man is 
an arrogant ignoramus, a type obviously only possible in this 
[country's] legal set-up.  He would not have lasted very long in a 
Canadian courtroom!  Honestly, Ingrid, of all the witnesses I have 
seen in my decades of legal proceedings, Klein was one of the least 
impressive. 

His [testimony] was a disaster!  He behaved in a manner that 
certainly reflected badly on the German judicial system. He could not 
remember obvious things - matters he should have known!  When Dr. 
Schaller tried to get him to explain what Rechtsextremismus/Extremism 
of the Right was, he at first refused to answer, then gave smart-alec 
answers - until finally Dr. Meinerzhagen directed him to please 
answer the question, it was relevant!  Ingrid, a Canadian high school 
junior could have given a better answer!  It was clear that the two 
judges were also frustrated and embarrassed. I was embarrassed for 
the media who was there.  

Imagine, a German prosecutor having to be repeatedly reminded by the 
Judges, Dr. Meinerzhagen and Judge Hamm, to answer justified 
questions!   Klein's appearance was to me an anticlimax, for he was 
virtually a waste of the court's time and added very little to the 
case.

[END]




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