"Holocaust Is the Biggest Lie Ever"... 95-Year-Old German Woman Sentenced to Prison

2019 European Parliament Far-Right Party Candidate
99-Year-Old Nazi Concentration Camp Guard Case Dismissed

A 95-year-old far-right German grandmother who repeatedly denied the Holocaust (the Nazi genocide of Jews) has been sentenced to prison. On the 26th (local time), local media including ARD reported that the Hamburg Regional Court in Germany sentenced Ursula Haverbeck to 1 year and 4 months in prison in her appeal trial on charges of inciting the public.

German 95-year-old far-right grandmother Ursula Haverbeck talking with a lawyer
[Photo by AFP·Yonhap News]

In 2015, Haverbeck claimed in relation to the trial of Nazi SS officer Oskar Gr?ning that "Auschwitz was not a concentration camp but a labor camp." In an interview broadcast the same year, she was also accused of stating that the Holocaust was "the longest-lasting lie in history." She told the court that she had never denied the Holocaust but only doubted it. She also argued, "Verify it scientifically. Take the logic of the critics seriously." Local media reported that applause broke out in the gallery after her approximately 20-minute statement.

German Court: "Even the Trial Was Used as an Opportunity to Spread Her Claims"

The court pointed out in response to Haverbeck's statement, "The defendant experienced the Nazis as a child and has lived to be 95 years old. However, the victims of the Nazi genocide did not." It added that the sentence reflected the fact that she used even the trial as an opportunity to spread her claims. Born in 1928, Haverbeck has been convicted multiple times since 2004 for denying the Holocaust. She served two years in prison from 2018 and even ran as a far-right party candidate in the 2019 European Parliament elections. In the first trial of this case, Haverbeck was sentenced to prison, but she did not serve the sentence due to her appeal, health issues, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2019, portraits of Holocaust survivors were exhibited at the Jewish Heritage Museum in New York, USA.
[Photo by AP·Yonhap News]

Earlier, a 99-year-old man who was charged with aiding and abetting genocide as a member of the Nazi SS was dismissed from prosecution. The Hanau District Court announced that it would not commence the trial, stating that the defendant was permanently unable to stand trial due to health reasons. The man was charged last September with aiding and abetting 3,322 counts of murder or attempted murder while working as a guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Brandenburg, Germany, from July 4, 1943, to February 23, 1945. The defendant was responsible for monitoring prisoners and transporting detainees from a nearby train station to the camp. The prosecution charged him in October 2022, stating that his mental state was limited but sufficient to stand trial. However, the court later judged that his health had deteriorated and that improvement was unlikely.