He who argues that peaceful dissidents on historical issues should be deprived of their civil rights for their diverging views, that is: incarcerated, is – if given the power to implement his in-tentions – nothing else but a tyrant (if enacting laws to support his oppressive deeds) or a terrorist (if acting outside the law).
Hans-Jürgen Witzsch was a history teacher from Fürth/Germany who loved to do his own archival research (see for instance his research on Foreign Workers in the Third Reich). Since he did not want to be told by penal law to which conclusions he had to come with his efforts, he got into conflict with the German censorship law and was eventually sentenced to a three months prison term. (A paper describing his case exists in German only, I’m afraid.) When he died on December 10, 2003, at the age of 64, his friend Gerhard Ittner wrote an orbituary which I published in my then magazine. Curiously enough, the author of this orbituary was himself arrested shortly after Witzsch’s death for his own peaceful, yet provocative statements and eventually put on trial, as I mentioned in a footnore in said orbituary. In the last issue of my then magazine, shortly before my own arrest in the U.S., I even published a brief Letter to the Editor by Gerhard Ittner about the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. Those curious as to what Ittner wrote that irks the German authorities may do so for example by going to the Thiazi Net.
Why do I mention all this?
Two days ago I received an email from a certain Christian (which had ended up in my spam folder) with the following content:
“‘Hello Christian,
I am supposed to great you nicely from your old friend Gerd Ittner. On April 11 [2012] he was arrested and is now in investigative custody at Beja.
Here is his address:
Gerhard Ittner
Estabelecimento Prisional de Beja
Rua de Lisboa Nr. 81
P – 7801-906 Beja
Portugal
With my best regards
xxx’
Since the date mentioned in this email we have not received any news from Gerd. This is explained by his arrest in Portugal.
The Federal German system has tried recently to make some connection [between Ittner and] the NSU [National Socialist Underground, an alleged terrorist organization] – see e.g. here: [Thüringer Allgemeine]
Apparently this was the only way for them to successfully convince their Portuguese colleagues to arrest him, because convictions for Holocaust denial are not necessarily sufficient for an extradition. After Gerd evidently got into the crosshairs of the [German] investigators, they invented an outrageous story which sealed Gerd’s fate after seven years of being on the lam, although this case will prove untenable.
But unfortunately the Portuguese officials know too little about these machinations and stagings by the OMF’s* secret services in order to see through this evil intrigue. […]“
And here is in translation what the Thüringer Allgemeine wrote about Ittner, among other things:
“Ittner was in touch with the hard core of the Jena terror cell. He lectured for instance at the Thuringia Homeland Protection [a right-wing group], which had also been joined by the later terrorists Beate Zschäpe, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt. Ittner also appeared during the 2002 and 2003 Thuringia Day of the National Youth, which was organized by the former deputy president of the Thuringia NPD Ralf Wohlleben, who is in jail for suspicions of aiding and abetting in six murders.”
Hence just having been present at places where others have been as well at some point suffices for the media to link a person to terrorism. This means that the media and authorities in Germany are now trying to equate revisionism with terrorism. I wonder when I will get caught up in this hysteria for having given Ittner a podium in my then magazine back in 2004/2005.
First they arrested the Nazi. I remained silent, for I was no Nazi.
Then they arrested the nationalist. I remained silent, for I was no nationalist.
Next they arrested the patriot. I remained silent, for I was no patriot.
Then they arrested me, and there was nobody left to break the silence.
* OMF stands for “Organisationsform einer Modalität der Fremdherrschaft” (Organizational Form of a Modality of Foreign Domination), a term coined in 1948 by German Member of Parliament and expert in constitutional law Carlo Schmid, describing the fact that the early Federal Republic of Germany was exactly that.
