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Ernst Christof Friedrich Zündel (born April 24, 1939 in Bad Wildbad) is a German Holocaust denier and pamphleteer who was jailed several times for publishing hate literature. In 1977, Zündel founded a small press publishing house called Samisdat Publishers which issued such pamphlets as The Hitler We Loved and Why and Did Six Million Really Die?, both prominent documents of the so-called Holocaust Revisionism movement. For many years Zündel made his views known from his home in Canada and in 2005, he was deported back to his native Germany and detained in Mannheim prison awaiting trial for Holocaust denial.
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Background
Zündel emigrated to Canada from West Germany in 1958, when he was 19, in order to avoid being conscripted by the German military. He married a French-Canadian, Janick Larouche, in 1960 with whom he had two sons, Pierre and Hans. During the 1960s he came under the tutelage of Canadian fascist Adrien Arcand.
In the mid 1960s while living in Montreal he was an organizer among immigrants for the Ralliement des créditistes. In 1968 he joined the Liberal Party of Canada and ran in that year's leadership convention using it as a platform to allege that Canadian society was replete with anti-German attitudes. He dropped out of the contest prior to voting, but not before delivering his campaign speech to the convention.
Professionally, Zündel worked as a graphic artist and printer, on several occasions he was commissioned to illustrate covers for Maclean's Magazine. His views on Nazism and Jews were not well known in the 1960s and 1970s and he initially published his opinions under the pseudonym Christof Friedrich.
His first marriage ended in 1977 as his public notoriety grew.
Holocaust denial and trials
That same year, Zündel founded a small press publishing house called Samisdat Publishers which issued such pamphlets as The Hitler We Loved and Why and Did Six Million Really Die? by Richard Harwood a.k.a. Richard Verrall (a British neo-Nazi leader). He also published booklets claiming that UFOs were actually Nazi secret weapons operated from secret Nazi military bases in Antarctica. From 1981 to 1982 Zündel had his mailing privileges suspended by the government on the grounds that he had been using the mail to send hate propaganda.
In 1984 he was criminally charged for "disseminating and publishing material denying the Holocaust." Zündel's trial was notable for its reliance on testimony from individuals such as David Irving and Fred A. Leuchter, a self-styled expert in gas chambers whose testimony was dismissed due to his lack of any engineering credentials. Key expert testimony against Zündel's alleged Holocaust denial was provided at great lengths by eminent Holocaust historian, Raul Hilberg.
Zündel was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to 15 months imprisonment by an Ontario court; however, in 1991 his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada when the law he had been charged under, reporting false news, was ruled unconstitutional. In 1997, Zündel's marriage with his second wife, Irene Margarelli, collapsed after 18 months. "At one point I really loved him," she told an acquaintance. "By the end, I thought he was evil incarnate."[1] (http://members.rogers.com/andrews1275/articles/globeandmailstory.html)
She subsequently testifed against him in the late 1990s when he was under investigation by the Canadian Human Rights Commission for promoting hatred against Jews via his website. In January 2000, before the Commission had completed its hearings, he left Canada for Tennessee where he married his third wife, Ingrid Rimland and vowed never to return to Canada.
Detention and deportation
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In 2003, Zündel was arrested in the United States for violating that country's immigration rules. He was deported to Canada despite the fact that he is a German citizen and his permanent residency status in Canada had expired due to his prolonged absence from the country. A warrant for his arrest because of incitement of the masses (Volksverhetzung, offence in Germany including Holocaust denial) was issued in Germany in the same year.
Zündel remained in detention in Canada as a security threat due to his alleged links with violent neo-Nazi groups. He was resisting deportation to Germany where he is wanted for hate crimes and was seeking refugee status in Canada.
On February 24 2005, Canadian Federal Court justice Pierre Blais ruled that Canada could deport Zündel back to his native Germany at any time.
On February 25, Zündel's lawyer, Peter Lindsay, announced that his client would not attempt to obtain a stay against the deportation and that his fight to remain in Canada was over. Zündel was deported to Germany on March 1 2005. [2] (http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/03/01/zundel-050301.html) Upon his arrival at Frankfurt airport, he was immediately arrested and is currently being detained in Mannheim prison awaiting trial for Holocaust denial. [3] (http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,344288,00.html)
Is Zündel Jewish?
According to Toronto Sun columnist Mark Bonokoski, Zündel's mother was Gertrude Mayer and his maternal grandparents were Nagal and Isador (Izzy) Mayer. Izzy Mayer was a union organizer for the garmant industry in the Bavarian town of Augsburg.
According to Bonokoski, Ernst's ex-wife Irene Zündel said that the possibility of being at least part-Jewish bothered Zündel so much that he returned to Germany in the 1960s in search of his family's Arierausweis, a Nazi-era certificate of pure Aryan blood, but was unable to find any such document for his family.
In 1997, Zündel granted an interview to Tsadok Yecheskeli of the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth that includes the following exchange:
- Yecheskeli: "Are you sure there's no Jewish blood in your family?"
- Zündel: (In hushed voice) "No." [4] (http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Mark_Bonokoski/2005/03/02/946805.html)
Quotes
About Ernst Zündel:
- "If Ernst Zündel is a refugee, Daffy Duck is Albert Einstein... Some propositions are so ludicrous that they are a betrayal of common sense and human dignity if allowed a moment's oxygen." —Rex Murphy
- "Mr. Zündel's activities are not only a threat to Canada's national security, but also a threat to the international community of nations." —Canadian Federal Court Justice Pierre Blais[5] (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050225/ZUNDEL25/TPNational/)
By Ernst Zündel:
- "I have always seen blunders in my life not as stumbling blocks, but as stepping stones."
- "The Jews of the world have a Holocaust coming, and all of the gruesome lies that they've told about people like Germans during the Second World War—all of those grotesque Spielberg-like distortions of what really took place—one day will come back to haunt Jews, and I want to not be around when that happens." [6] (http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/z/zundel-ernst/Zundel-Tsadok-013.html)
External links
- Zündelsite: Ernst Zündel's Web site (http://www.zundelsite.org/)
- "The Trial of Emst Zundel: Revisionism and the Law in Canada," (http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/resources/books/annual6/chap07.html) by Leonidas E. Hill, for the Simon Wiesenthal Center
- Ernst Zündel / Ingrid Rimland (http://www.adl.org/poisoning_web/zundel.asp)
- Nizkor Project archive criticism of Zündel (http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/z/zundel-ernst/)
- Zündel's UFO Research (http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/z/zundel-ernst/flying-saucers/expedition.html)
- Ernst Zundel: Civil Rights Champion? (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPPrint/LAC/20040306/ZUNDEL06/TPComment/) from the Toronto Globe and Mail
- Biographical article (http://members.rogers.com/andrews1275/articles/globeandmailstory.html) from the Toronto Globe and Mail
- Will his ex bring him down? (http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/18/09/News/feature2.html) 1999 article from NOW Magazine on Irene Zündel's testimony against her ex-husband
- Full text of Justice Blais' decision (http://www.fct-cf.gc.ca/bulletins/whatsnew/DES-2-03_e.pdf) February 24, 2005 ruling on the Zündel security certificate and deportation
- The Jewish Card (http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Mark_Bonokoski/2005/03/02/946805.html), March 2 2005 column by Mark Bonokoski of the Toronto Sun alleging that Zündel is part Jewish.de:Ernst Zündel