Ernst Zundel

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 regulations,
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 Germany , 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.”

For more about Ernst Zundel, the injustice
against him, and the worldwide campaign to secure his freedom, see the Zundelsite, including “David Against
Goliath”.

See also:

“Ernst Zundel:
Letters from Prison”

“American Rally
for Zundel’s Freedom” (Feb. 2005)

“Ernst Zundel: Prisoner
of Conscience, Victim of Thought Crime”

“Who is
Ernst Zundel, And Why is He in Jail?” (Sept. 2003)

Updated: Sept. 19, 2005

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Ernst Zundel with Ingrid Rimland at an IHR conference, May
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Demonstrators in downtown Los Angeles, Feb.4, 2005 call for
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Zundel speaks at IHR conference in May 2000

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With Ingrid Rimland in Palm Springs

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Zundel with John Sack

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Zundel with Ingrid Rimland in San Francisco

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At work at Zundelhaus

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Toronto Holocaust trial, 1980s

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Toronto Holocaust trial, 1980s

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