Zundel Persecution By Order of Jews,
Part 2
On this week's program Mr. Strom continues his interview with
the spokesman for the Zundel family, historian Mark Weber. Ernst Zundel
-- imprisoned for publicly doubting Zionist myths -- personifies the
struggle for freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of
inquiry. His struggle for freedom is our struggle for a decent and free
future for our posterity.
An interview with Mark Weber of the Institute for Historical Review.
American Dissident Voices broadcast
March 12, 2005
by Kevin Alfred Strom
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ON TODAY'S PROGRAM we continue our update on the Zundel case, as
Mr. Zundel, one of the world's foremost political prisoners and
prisoners of conscience is newly imprisoned in Mannheim prison in
Germany for the "crime" of doubting the court historians and the Jewish
supremacist and Zionist lobby's view of history. I don't believe there
is any clearer case in the world of a man who is in prison because of
the dictates of his conscience and his determination to use his voice
and pen to state the truth as he sees it. It is not an exaggeration to
say that the fate of freedom in the West will be affected for decades
to come, perhaps even centuries, by what is happening to Ernst Zundel
right now.
In just a moment, we will be joined by Mark Weber, historian and Director of the Institute for Historical Review, on American Dissident Voices.
KAS: I wonder what would happen if 1,000 men showed up if
front of Mannheim prison and stated on placards, or just stated with
their loud voices, that they, too, doubted the Jewish version of WW II
history...
MW: Well, I think demonstrations can really be effective in
this because there's less and less will to enforce these ridiculous
laws, these anti-Free Speech laws, because they run so counter to the
principles that the country claims to uphold. At the same time, Ernst
Zundel is so blunt and forthright in his views that even many
nationalists in Germany are fearful of associating themselves with him
because they want to say "no, no, you see, we're nationalists, or we're
'this' -- but we're not like that Ernst Zundel."
Zundel is a provocative man; he's often deliberately provocative.
That's a strength but it can also be a source of weakness at times.
But, overall, Ernst Zundel's courage and his feistiness have been some
of his greatest strengths.
KAS: I saw one photograph, on the newswires, that showed
Ernst Zundel on arrival at the German prison, and he was smiling,
looking very upbeat. Is there any word on how his spirits are right
now?
MW: I talked to him just hours before he was put on a plane
and sent to Germany. It was the last phone conversation we may have in
years. And, as usual, Ernst Zundel's mood is three things
simultaneously.
First, he's a person who's realistic; he's not under any illusions about the situation he's in.
Second, he's upbeat. He's eternally an optimistic man who tries to
see the best of any given situation but, at the same time, his view is
tempered with a sober realism.
Third, he was philosophical. I was very struck by how he sees his
fate as part of a larger unfolding of events, and sees himself as a man
who's playing a role -- an important role, but just one role -- in a
very large unfolding drama. He says "fate is not done with me yet." He
said he'd survived fire-bombings, assassination attempts, imprisonment,
an enormous legal campaign by powerful Jewish organizations in Canada,
and he said all that didn't happen just so everything ends now. When he
says fate is not done yet with Ernst Zundel, I think he's quite right
about that.
This combination of a kind of philosophical view of himself, and an
utter lack of any self-pity, and realism, and optimism, are
characteristics of Ernst Zundel's personality that struck me when I
first met him in 1988, and I think they characterize his general
character and personality.
KAS: Is there any hope at all for anything from the Canadian
or American courts to stop this circus and get Ernst home? Or have all
of those avenues been exhausted?
MW: In Canada I think the chapter's really closed on doing
anything there; I don't think any more can be done there. In fact it's
almost a fluke that, after he was taken from the United States, he was
even taken back to Canada. If a few things had gone differently, he
might've been put on a plane and sent directly to Germany at that time.
Here in America, attorneys representing Ernst Zundel are still
fighting to overturn his deportation and the order banning him from the
United States for 20 years. It's a pretty outrageous thing. But given
the powers that have been given to the government -- especially in the
wake of September 11th -- and the fact that Ernst Zundel is not a US
citizen, it's going to be very difficult to overturn that. The real
battle is going to be fought in Germany now.
KAS: Is Ernst Zundel adequately represented in Germany?
MW: Without going into detail, I understand that he is. My
information is that the main attorney who's representing him is really
a first-rate, capable man. We have yet to see what's going to happen
but, so far, yes. Over the next several weeks, it'll be very revealing
to see what his legal recourse is going to be and how exactly he's
going to fight it.
KAS: The language of the prosecution and the defense will be
German, and the events will no longer turn on American or Canadian
decisions. Will, in your opinion, this make the story disappear in
North American media?
MW: Yes, largely. Largely I think it will, and it's also
going to be harder to raise money for his legal defense because it's
difficult in the European context to raise money for legal defense in
the same way we're used to doing here in the United States or in Canada
-- the situation's different. But, again, I think we're just seeing
really the bare beginnings of it and there's many different ways this
could play out.
KAS: You're not planning on a diminution on coverage in your own alternative media, the IHR web site, are you?
MW: We've been giving a lot of coverage to all of this. Not
just because of the very important role he played during the 1980s and
in bringing out a fabulous amount of new information on the Holocaust
and the Second World War, but also because he's spoken twice at IHR
conferences -- he was at the very first IHR conference in 1979; and
because he's a friend: I've known him, and I've testified on his
behalf... we feel a kinship and a relationship for those reasons. And
also he is the personification right now in the world of the struggle
for free historical inquiry and free historical expression. He's been
the number one political prisoner in North America, he's now an
important political prisoner in Europe, and he deserves the support of
everyone who cares about free speech and free inquiry.
KAS: How are Jewish groups reacting to these events?
MW: Predictably, the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles
and the Anti-Defamation League in New York immediately issued a
crowing, exultant press release applauding (of course) the transfer of
Zundel to Germany, and his arrest there. I cannot stress it too highly:
These organizations have been gunning for Ernst Zundel for many years
and they have been doing everything they can to silence him.
KAS: Paul Fromm recently told the media that this is "coming
at a very volatile time. There's a lot of discontent in Germany in
right now and Ernst Zundel may well be a rallying point for Germans who
are sick and tired of hearing about the holocaust and German guilt." We
saw members of the major German nationalist party, the NPD, walk out
during a Jewish Holocaust ceremony and also openly call the allied
attack on Dresden a "Holocaust of Bombs." How is Ernst Zundel going to
alter the face of the historical debate in Germany, and will he find
allies there?
MW: The extent of which he'll find allies is not yet clear.
But it is true the mood is changing in Europe. There's a greater
awareness, by a new generation, that people other than Jews were
victims in the second World War.
You know it's especially ironic that we hear so much about the
Holocaust; "holocaust" means a consuming by fire. Literally hundreds of
thousands of Germans were consumed in a holocaust during the second
World War -- victims of terror bombings in that terrible conflict. More
and more Germans are not willing to just be silent when we hear over
and over about one category of victimization -- and nothing about the
suffering of other people during the Second World War.
You know this just can't go on like it has. The Holocaust campaign
over the last 20 to 30 years has increasingly shifted the finger of
blame -- and pointed it not just at Germans or "Nazis," but at all
Europeans and, indeed, all of humanity. Humanity is more and more
collectively regarded by Jewish organizations as having this guilt, or
responsibility, for what's alleged to be the greatest crime in history. This is impossible over the long run to pull off. Some people
will sort of go along with it, but it's absurd on its face and it's the
logical extension of how Jews see the Second World War and the
Holocaust. They see it as part of a larger historical drama, in which
there's a constant struggle between non-Jews and Jews, and Hitler is
regarded as the most recent of a long line of leaders who have been
anti-Jewish.
KAS: Well, they keep wailing that 'the world is against us';
it seems to me that if they wail long enough, it may become a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
MW: It's not going to go on forever, that the world will
just go along with this lament. It may resonate with Jews, but it isn't
going to resonate with non-Jews forever. We're seeing, really, I think,
all over the world, a real change in that regard. The treatment of
Ernst Zundel really points up he's not a perpetrator, he's a victim.
This is an important thing. Palestinians are victims of Jewish
power. Around the world there's a greater and greater awareness that
Jews wield a tremendous power in our society and are going to use it to
oppress, to carry out war and destruction... this awareness cannot help
but play a role in all this. Now that may be a process of awareness too
slow to help Ernst Zundel immediately, but the mood is changing all
over the world.
KAS: I don't know who said it first, but it has been said
that "we're all Palestinians now" and, in a sense, I think people are
waking up to that.
MW: I'm very pleased that there's an increasing world-wide
awareness about the forces that brought about the Iraq war. The same
President that lied to the public to carry out this war against Iraq is
now agitating, along with his neo-con friends in the White House, for
war against Iran and Syria. This should make it obvious to everyone
this isn't a war about oil; it's a war, as Senator Hollings of South
Carolina said, to secure Israel. This is a conflict for Jewish
interests.
The world has no interest in war in Iran. The only country and the
only group that has an interest in war against Iran is Israel and
organized Jewry. A war against Iran would be catastrophic, would be
terrible, and the whole world knows this. But Israel and Jewish groups
are pressing for war against Iran or against Syria and the cost,
unfortunately, will be a very high one paid, not by Israel and American
Jews, but paid with lives and blood and treasure of millions of people
in the United States, in the Middle East, and other places.
KAS: All of them as innocent as Ernst Zundel.
Mr. Zundel is 65 years old, Mark. And he stands accused of speech
crimes that could earn him significant prison time in Germany. Do you
think that he will be convicted and, if so, will he spend the rest of
his life in jail?
MW: I don't think he'll spend the rest of his life in jail.
It's even questionable whether he'll be convicted. As I say, the
charges against him are not only absurd but they're very flimsy. He's
being charged with "Holocaust denial" on the basis of articles on a Web
site in the United States that he doesn't even control. He might still
be found guilty, as absurd as that is, but, even so, it's hard to
imagine how he would be held for the rest of his life -- even if he is
found guilty on that absurd change.
KAS: What sort of sentence do you think would be meted out? Two years... three years... five years... if he's convicted?
MW: Based on what's happened to others, who have been in a
similar situation, generally the sentences have been running about a
year and a half -- something like that. In prison, I mean. Of course
there are other people who are punished with fines and punished in
other ways. Sometimes the sentences are suspended. Gunter Deckert was,
I think, sentenced to 15 months in prison for being an interpreter for
a talk given by Fred Leuchter in Germany. David Irving, for making a
statement at a meeting in Munich, was fined, I think, 30,000 marks and
banned from the country; so, in his case, he wasn't arrested, and he
wasn't jailed. That's kind of the range of the level of punishment in
these cases. I guess the good news is that, even if he's found guilty,
it's not so likely that he would be held for as long as he was just
held -- for two years in solitary confinement in supposedly "free and
democratic" Canada.
KAS: That's good news in a way -- if it turns out that way.
I suppose then the focus would switch to becoming reunited with his
wife and fighting to be able to return to his home in Tennessee, if he
can actually do that.
MW: Right. Zundel was correct when he said that Providence
is not done with him yet. It's ironic that all he wanted to do was live
rather quietly in Tennessee with his wife and paint pictures. Fate has
thrust him onto the world stage again.
KAS: Ernst Zundel has always been a man who can take a bad
situation and do something positive with it. He's a man of great
creativity and energy. He took the false news trials, and the Web site
trials, and the latest sham proceedings, and turned them (for anyone
who would listen, anyway) into a damning indictment of the Jewish power
structure -- and its lies, its distortions, its outrageous corruption
and manipulation of the legal system. Now he'll be on trial again, this
time just for speaking his mind -- and in the country which has been
the focus of both the Jews' efforts to vilify, and Zundel's efforts to
set the record straight. I predict there will be fireworks. What do you
think?
MW: That's what I hope. And you're right: Ernst Zundel has
never been one to just take things lying down, and he's always been a
man to make the most of any situation. It's going to be incumbent upon
us to do everything we can to keep things up, and increase awareness
about all of this. I've been very encouraged by the expression of
support -- even before Ernst landed in Germany -- that we've seen from
Germany just in the last couple of days that he's been there now.
KAS: What can our listeners do to help Ernst in his fight for his freedom?
MW: They can organize demonstrations and write to German
consulates and embassies in the countries where they live. They can
inform themselves about the case. There's a tremendous amount of
information, not only on just what's been happening recently, but
background information, on the IHR site at ihr.org. Beyond that, they
can also contribute money to the legal defense campaign by going to the
Zundelsite, and of course they can support the IHR, and our efforts as
well. But what exactly are going to be the most effective things to do
after that, I think will be more obvious within the next few weeks.
KAS: Mark, we're going to be watching the situation with
Ernst Zundel in Germany very closely. We're going to be giving his
fight for freedom, and freedom of expression, a lot of publicity on
nationalvanguard.org, and on this radio program, and I want to thank
you for being a part of that. I want to thank you for being a stalwart
friend to Ernst Zundel and a friend of freedom of speech, and for
helping bring the truth to light through your work with the Institute
for Historical Review. Thank you very much.
MW: Thank you, Kevin, and you deserve tremendous praise yourself for the work that you've been doing.
at
the Battle of Cowpens, S. Carolina, 1781