Germar Rudolf in summer 1991, shortly before his research trip to Auschwitz.
Germar Rudolf in early 2003.
On a P&O ferry to England in Januay 2010 after spending Christmas at his parents in Germany.
Germar Rudolf was born on October 29, 1964, in Limburg, Germany. After graduating from a university-prep high school in 1983 in Remscheid, Germany, he studied chemistry at Bonn University, where he graduated in 1989 as a Diplom-Chemist. From 1990-1993 he prepared a PhD thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State research in conjunction with the University of Stuttgart.
As almost everybody else, Rudolf believed in the veracity of the “official” version about the Holocaust when he was a young man. But this changed in 1989, at age 24, when he accidentally learned about the now-famous Leuchter Report. In it, U.S. expert for execution technologies Fred Leuchter lists a plethora of forensic evidence putting into doubt the existence of homicidal gas chambers at the former German Auschwitz and Majdanek camps. Rudolf subsequently started making his own investigations in his spare time.
Because he had an academic degree in chemistry, he was eventually asked to prepare a forensic expert report by a defense team of a German defendant who was one trial for “Holocaust denial.” Rudolf agreed, and in turn for having all his expenses paid, he agreed to have his expert report published in due time. To finalize the research needed for his expert report, Rudolf went to the former Auschwitz and Birkenau camps, took brick, plaster and mortar samples of delousing chambers and alleged homicidal gas chambers, and had them analyzed for traces of cyanide. Cyanides are possible residues of the active ingredient in the infamous Zyklon B. Following the pioneering work of Fred Leuchter, Rudolf, as a scientist, found the “gassing” claims to be scientifically untenable in his expert report, which since 2017 carries the title The Chemistry of Auschwitz.
Between 1991 and 1994, Rudolf was summoned to several trials in Germany by various defense teams. But since the “Holocaust” is considered “self-evident” by German courts, no evidence ever offered by any defense team trying to contest certain historical claims will be accepted. Thus, even Rudolf was always rejected as an expert witness.
In early 1993, the defendant with whom Rudolf had an agreement to publish his expert report, went ahead and published it himself, adding a somewhat hot-headed preface and appendix. In the following years and as a result of this, Rudolf had his home raided thrice by German State Protection Squads who seized his computers and papers; he lost his job three times, and was kicked out of his apartment twice. For this “enriched” expert report, he was put on trial for “Holocaust denial” in 1994/1995, where he was not even allowed to introduce his own work – the weapon of crime – in his defense. Even though this research on Auschwitz as put down in his report was scientific in nature and utterly apolitical, he was found guilty of “stirring up the masses”, “inciting to hatred”, “libel” and “disparaging the remembrance of the dead”, and convicted to 14 month imprisonment. As a result, the University of Stuttgart denied him to pass his final PhD exam, relying on a 1939 Hitler law still valid today which permits withholding or withdrawing academic degrees in case of “unworthiness.”
Rudolf tried to avoid serving this prison term by going into British exile with his young wife and two babies. There he started a small revisionist outlet for German language material, Castle Hill Publishers, mainly focusing on dissenting historical material and the violation of civil rights in Germany. He also established the multilingual website www.vho.org, which within a few years outgrew other revisionist websites by size and traffic. In early 1999, due to the permanent persecutorial pressure, his wife left him with their two children. She returned to Germany and filed for a divorce several months alter.
In late 1999, the British media started a campaign to have Rudolf extradited to Germany, falsely portraying him as a “new, dangerous breed of Neo-Nazi” and calling for a “man hunt” for him by the local population. Fair game as Rudolf was, he fled to the U.S., where he applied for political asylum. While his case wound its way through the U.S. legal system, Rudolf expanded his publishing activities into English language material, for instance by launching the ambitious series “Holocaust Handbooks.” In 2004 Rudolf married again, this time a U.S. citizen, and soon became the father of a young baby daughter. Seconds after this marriage was recognized as genuine by the U.S. Immigration Services in October 2005, and at a time when a hearing of his asylum case was just being scheduled by a U.S. Federal Court, the U.S. government had Rudolf arrested, and deported him to Germany four weeks later. Hence his asylum hearing which took place in absentia a few months later was nothing but a farce.
In Germany, Rudolf was duly arrested in order to serve his outstanding 14 months, and to face new charges on 21 counts of violating Germany’s censorship laws while he was abroad. Although Rudolf’s activities had been and still are perfectly legal both in the UK and the U.S., Germany claims jurisdiction over deeds committed beyond its borders, as soon as any effect of it can be felt in Germany, like contraband material being shipped across its borders or being accessible over the internet. Rudolf’s indictment was eventually reduced this to 9 cases of disseminating “illegal” writings, but the court sentenced him only on two counts: his book Lectures on the Holocaust as well as a promotion brochure for revisionism. For this, Rudolf was sentenced to another 30 months imprisonment in 2007.
On July 5, 2009, Rudolf was released from prison. He left Germany immediately, and lived for a year in England, then in Mexico and Panama, hoping to be able soon to move back to the United State. The U.S. government, however, refused to adjudicate his application for a green card. Only after Rudolf sued the U.S. government, did they eventually admit that he is legally entitled to an immigrant visa, which was finally issued in July 2011. Hence, Rudolf was reunited with his American family in August 2011. He currently resides in Upstate New York.
