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ince 1993 the German government tries to force Germar Rudolf to believe in the official version of German history with all measures of persecution by prosecution. To find relief from this persecution, Germar Rudolf applied for political asylum in the United States in late 2000. His case will soon be heard by a U.S. Federal Court. It could prove to be a landmark case when it comes to the question whether or not Germany and other European countries should be allowed to put people in prison merely for their unpopular scholarly views on history or politics.

Because the U.S. State Department does not recognize Germany as a persecuting country, and because the INS cannot overrule State Department policies, it had to turn down Rudolf’s application. Even though this negative decision was expected, when turning down Rudolf’s application for political asylum, the INS also decided – and the INS Board of Appeals agreed – that

Rudolf’s application for political asylum was frivolous.

As a result of this, the INS ordered that Rudolf is subject to involuntary departure, meaning that he will be sent back to Germany in handcuffs; that he will be banned from the USA for a lifetime, meaning that he will never be able to return to the US; and that there is no remedy to change this, meaning that not even his marriage to a U.S. citizen and having a child with her can avert that deportation and banning.

This decision will be brought to a Federal Court for appeal. The reasons for appeal are, i.a.:

1. The harshest accusation the INS can make against an asylum seeker is that he filed a frivolous application. The harshest penalty the INS can hand down on an immigrant is involuntary departure, banning for a lifetime, and no remedy. In other words: under immigration law Rudolf was accused of the most severe crime he could possibly commit, and he was punished with the hardest penalty possible. The problem with this verdict is the following.

   1. A frivolous application is defined by case law as an application either not back-up with any evidence for persecution or by committing treacherous acts against the INS during the asylum proceedings, like lying to the INS judge, forging evidence, manipulating witnesses, and the like.

   2. Because of the severity of the consequences of filing a frivolous application, the immigration judge must notify the defendant (=immigrant) during the hearing that he considers categorizing his application frivolous, and the Judge also has to inform the defendant what the evidence is upon which he bases his assumption, so that the defendant can defend himself against this most severe accusation.

2. This decision of "frivolousness" was made without any notice, warning, or opportunity to clear up any discrepancies. This was in violation of Immigration Service regulations and rulings by various Federal Courts, which require that there be sufficient opportunity for the applicant to account for all discrepancies. This decision also openly contradicts the comments of the Immigration Judge during the hearing. He confirmed not only the seriousness of Rudolf's application (Transcript of Hearing, p. 209), but also that the record of evidence was extensive both in scope and scale (Transcript, pp. 18, 22, 25, 29, 149, 163, 208, 222, 312). As a reason for calling Rudolf's application "frivolous", the Judge mentioned two items to support his claim:

   1. A letter Rudolf wrote back in 1994 to his godmother, in which he had denied to have used the pen name "Ernst Gauss". Of course, this proves only that he had lied to a relative some ten years ago, but not to the immigration judge. To the contrary: both during his German trial back in 1995 and in his application form for political asylum, Rudolf admitted to have used this pen name. If the fact that a person once in his life has lied to a relative is sufficient reason to deny political asylum, then the institution of political asylum would cease to exist, as it can be safely assumed that every human being at some point in his/her life has lied to a relative. It may also be pointed out that the immigration judge's claim, this lie would shed bad light onto Rudolf, is also false. After all, Rudolf had a good reasons to deny the use of this pen name back in 1994, because at that time his scientific revisionist anthology "Dissecting the Holocaust" (German edition) was yet to appear, so he needed the secrecy of his pen name to protect himself from political persecution.

   2. The immigration judge argued that Rudolf tried to hide the truth from him about his close relationship to the German rightwing extremist Otto Ernst Remer in a similar way as Rudolf tried to hide it from the German court back in 1995. As prove the judge indicated that Rudolf had not mentioned in his application form for political asylum that he had temporarily resided with Remer after he had fled to Spain. In his  application form, Rudolf only mentioned “with various friends and in holiday apartments.” That Rudolf indeed resided at Remer's place can be seen from a newspaper article that Rudolf himself submitted to the court as evidence for his persecution. However, the article referred to by the juge only mentions that Rudolf "stayed with Remer." This is already a distortion by a journalist whose only interest was to link Rudolf to alleged Nazis. The article does not mention how long and for what purpose Rudolf stayed at Remer's residence. As a matter of fact, Remer's apartment served only as a meeting point with other individuals upon Rudolf's arrival in Spain. This point was chosen because Rudolf knew where Remer lived, since during his trial in Germany back in 1995, the entire German court had traveled to Spain to interrogate Remer as a witness. When Rudolf left Germany in March 1996, he was neither told who he would meet in Spain nor where he would be temporarily lodged. This was a security measure to prevent the German authorities to find Rudolf. Rudolf was actually lodged some 50 miles west of Remer's residence in a holyday apartment of a Spaniard whose name he cannot recall (which is why he did not give names) and later in the residence of an old German war veteran. Both locations were in the Spanish town of Estepona, which Rudolf indicated on his application form. (He does not remember the exact street addresses, though). Remer, however, lived in Marbella. So even the immigration judge could have concluded from these facts that Rudolf's temporary dwelling in Spain was not linked to Remer. Apart from that: the application form for asylum asks for “residences”, which are permanent dwellings. Neither of the locations where Rudolf resided during his short stay in Spain fulfills that criterion, since Rudolf never had any of his property with him in Spain, but merely luggage as one carries during a journey or vacation. Rudolf had no residence in Spain, only temporary lodgings comparable to hotels. And having stayed at Remer's residence for several hours while passing through certainly does not fulfill the criterion of a residence either.
      During the hearing of his asylum case, Rudolf's short presence in Spain was not mentioned by anyone. Rudolf therefore had no chance to refute this false claim that suddenly appeared in the written verdict. These underhanded methods are comparable to the German court, which back in 1995 tried to prove in a similar mendacious way that Rudolf had allegedly tried to hide his close relationship to Remer.

The Federal Court will have to decide whether it is legal to sentence defendants for crimes they were not accused of during the hearing, and for which there is no evidence. Under normal circumstances, of course, such a verdict by any court, INS or otherwise, would never be upheld by a Federal Court. However, since Rudolf is the world’s leading publisher of Holocaust revisionist material, and he is increasingly successful in rallying renowned historians from all over the world behind him, not only the US government, but also the German and the Israeli governments will exert all the power they have to see to it that Germar Rudolf will not be able to enjoy civil rights as they are granted to any decent U.S. citizen, and for which the U.S. once claimed to have gone to war against Germany.

There are, of course, other interesting aspects to this case. For example the question whether Germany should be allowed to deny “thought crime” defendants to introduce any evidence deemed to support their dissenting views, and to even punish defence lawyers should they dare to introduce such evidence.

Imagine a U.S. judge would deny a defence lawyer to introduce evidence to prove that the crime his defendant is accuse of did not occur in the first place. Imagine the same judge would turn against that lawyer for that and put him on trial. That would cause an outrage, of course. But in Germany it is common practice demanded by Germany’s Supreme Court.

The INS, in it wisdom, thinks that it found a way out of that by arguing that even U.S. laws have rules where evidence can be rejected due to the question to be proven by it being “self-evident”. In the written verdict, the INS judge related the example of a defendant on trial for a DUI offense. If a forensic analysis of the defendants blood resulted in the fact that he was driving a car under the influence of illegal amounts of alcohol, then the judge would rightly reject any witness statement offered by the defense to the contrary.

The problem is, of course, that the INS turned the facts of Rudolf’s case upside down. To stick with the INS judge‘s example: Rudolf WAS the forensic expert testifying in court that the defendant was driving under the influence of alcohol (here he testified that his analysis show that the gas chambers were not under the influence of poison gas). But instead of granting his testimony, the German judges reject him, put him in trial for defaming all witnesses who did or would testify otherwise, and also put lawyers on trial, who want to introduce forensic evidence (like Rudolf’s testimony).

Imagine such a surreal situation! Imagine an expert testifying in court about the fatherhood of a defendant, based upon DNS analysis, would be thrown in jail because his testimony contradicts that of some “eyewitnesses”, and thus tainting their reputation!

Hence, should the Federal Court dealing with Rudolf’s case uphold the verdict of the INS court, then due process for immigrants and maybe even for US citizens would be a matter of the past:

• defendants can be sentenced for crimes they were never accused of and for which there is no evidence

• forensic expert witnesses can be put on trial because their testimony is an insult to eyewitnesses who disagree.