Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger

Embassy of Germany

4645 Reservoir Road, NW

Washington, DC  20007

January 25, 2006

 

Dear Ambassador Ischinger,

Re: The German government's persecution of Holocaust revisionist scholar, Germar Rudolf. 

The UN Declaration of Human Rights is very clear and unequivocal on the right to freedom of speech.  It states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.”  The German government stands in blatant violation to this UN Declaration.  Herewith.

Germar Rudolf is a German citizen who was forced to flee his native Germany because he has questioned and refuted certain aspects of the Holocaust ideology.  In the United States, near Chicago, Revisionist scholar Rudolf was recently torn from his American wife and their child and delivered to Germany, where he is in prison in Stuttgart. 

I repeat the UN Declaration's statement: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.”  By imprisoning and persecuting Germar Rudolf because of his opinions and expressions about the Holocaust ideology, the German government is guilty of violating his right to freedom of opinion and expression. 

In response to my accusations, I suspect you are going to defend your government's actions with the following line of reasoning: “What Germar Rudolf says about the Holocaust is racist hate speech that must be banned in order to prevent another resurgence of Nazism in Germany.”

Even if what Rudolf has to say about the Holocaust ideology is “racist hate speech,” it still could be true.  Simply labeling a viewpoint as “racist hate speech” in no way disproves the viewpoint.

But let us give your government the benefit of the doubt and assume that everything (!) that Rudolf says about the Holocaust ideology is indeed 100% false, and that it is indeed “racist hate speech.”  A truly democratic society grants its citizens the right to be hopelessly and demonstrably wrong.  The right to freedom of speech is not to be applied selectively, depending upon the nature of the viewpoint in question.  It is to be applied universally and consistently to all members of a democratic society.  If it means anything at all, freedom of speech means the right to hold and expound controversial and unpopular opinions.  Don’t imprison Rudolf.  Release him and defeat his ideas in open and democratic debate. 

If contemporary Germany truly were a liberal democracy that respected everyone's right to freedom of expression, the German government would release Germar Rudolf and defeat his ideas in a nationally televised debate.  This would be the way that you could help to prevent the resurgence of a dictatorial and oppressive National Socialist form of government.  By releasing Germar Rudolf and engaging him in open debate, this would show the German people that a democracy that respects everyone's right to freedom of opinion and expression is superior to a right wing dictatorship that suppresses freedom of speech.

The continued imprisonment of my friend and colleague Germar Rudolf (and others like him) for expressing their opinions on the Holocaust ideology only serves to undermine the German people's faith in your so-called “democracy.”

I am asking for the immediate release of my friend and colleague Germar Rudolf by the German authorities.  I await your response.

Sincerely,

Paul Grubach