Horst Mahler
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Horst Mahler (born Haynau, Lower Silesia, January 23, 1936), is a German lawyer and active member within both the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) and the Deutsches Kolleg. The latter is a "far-right" think tank calling for a nationalist-racialist and socialist revolution in Germany. Along with Reinhold Oberlecher and Uwe Meenen, he stands against Western democratic and liberal ideals. As a former left-wing militant, he is also firmly opposed to German democratic conservatives. Mahler takes pride in being one of the most aggressive antisemites; one of his openly declared main political and ideological goals is to destroy Judaism.[citation needed]
Contents |
[edit] Early History, the Red Army Faction and Imprisonment
As a young lawyer, Mahler worked within a prominent Berlin law office until his socialist leanings led to involvement with clientele from the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition (APO), which in turn ruined his chance for a successful professional career in West Germany.
Dedicated to continuing his work, Mahler jointly founded the first "socialist lawyers collective" and represented several activists within the German student movement of the 1960s. He stepped beyond representation and took a more active stance following the shooting of Rudi Dutschke. Mahler's involvement in the protests against the right-wing newspaper that had fuelled Dutschke's attempted assassination led to an equally unsuccessful attempt to expunge his legal license. After defending Dutschke, Mahler moved on to defend Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin. In 1970, he fled to Jordan along with his two former clients and a few others, where they briefly trained for guerrilla warfare with the PLO. On their return, they began a "war on imperialism", having established the communist-extremist organization known as the Red Army Faction.
Mahler organised several bank raids. Although he helped to establish the Baader-Meinhof Gang, he later conceded leadership to Baader. Nevertheless, in 1972, Mahler was arrested (along with Ingrid Schubert, Monica Berberich, Brigitte Asdonk and Irene Goergens) after police discovered one of their hideouts in West-Berlin. Mahler was charged with “conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery in connection with the establishment of a criminal association and participation in the same” and sentenced to fourteen years in prison in 1972, after already serving two.
It was around this time that Mahler began to shed his revolutionary international marxist beliefs and a new manifesto he composed for the Baader-Meinhof gang expressing his new ideas, which included Maoism, was renounced by the rest of the group. After this Mahler was virtually kicked out of the revolutionary group; a group he helped establish. He was, however, offered the chance to leave prison in 1975 - a demand of the Peter Lorenz kidnappers, but he refused to go. He was released from prison in the early 1980s, was allowed to practice law again and reviewed and changed his political stance.
He came to embrace a synthesis between communism, anti-capitalism, nationalism, fascism and socialism. The class differences should be abolished, the people should be unified in race, traditional religions (Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism) should be abolished or reformed, Jews should be combatted, and a national state on racial, socialist and solidarist foundations should be erected.
[edit] The NPD and His New Political Allegiance
With new ideas about religion, tradition, "Jewish conspiracy" and the role of foreigners, Mahler has once again drawn national attention. His name has resurfaced in connection with the neo-fascist and nationalist movement. He has since joined Germany's NPD, which he successfully defended in a trial before the Bundesverfassungsgericht, the highest court in Germany, regarding its potential prohibition. Mahler's personal political views are more radical than those of most NPD politicians and some have even voiced their disapproval of his views.[1] Per Lennart Aae, a Franken representative of the NPD, notes "every day [he] spend with judaism [or] abuse of the Basic Constitutional Law is a lost day."[2]
Mahler's license to practice as a lawyer was withdrawn in 2004 and in January 2005, he was sentenced to nine months in prison for "inciting racial hatred". Later in 2005, Ernst Zündel looked to Mahler to defend his case own case for "inciting racial hatred", but on the first day of the trial, November 8, 2005, Judge Ulrich Meinerzhagen ruled that Mahler could not serve on the defense team. Meinerzhagen also dismissed public defender Sylvia Stolz on the grounds that her written submissions to the court were reflections of Mahler's ideas. These measures were seen by Mahler and his neo-nationalist and adherents to be undemocratic and illegitimate. Mahler draws considerable support from students, youth and the unemployed living in the territories of the formerly communist East Germany.
