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88-820: Strafgesetzbuch ( German pronunciation: [ˈʃtʁaːfɡəˌzɛtsbuːx] , literally "penal law book"), abbreviated to StGB , is the German penal code . In Germany the Strafgesetzbuch goes back to the Penal Code of the German Empire passed in the year 1871 on May 15 in Reichstag which was largely identical to the Penal Code of the North German Confederation from 1870. It came into effect on January 1, 1872. This Reichsstrafgesetzbuch (Imperial Penal Code)

176-515: A La Salle University medieval English literature professor, is considered the first major mainstream American holocaust denier. App defended the Germans and Nazi Germany during World War II. He published numerous articles, letters, and books on Holocaust denial, quickly building a loyal following. App's work inspired the Institute for Historical Review , a California center founded in 1978 whose sole task

264-475: A "false news" law and sentenced to 15 months imprisonment by an Ontario court for "disseminating and publishing material denying the Holocaust". The Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg was a witness for the prosecution at the 1985 trial. Zündel's conviction was overturned in an appeal on a legal technicality, leading to a second trial in 1988, in which he was again convicted. The 1988 trial included, as witnesses for

352-574: A French professor of literature at the University of Lyon , wrote two letters to Le Monde claiming that the gas chambers used by the Nazis to exterminate the Jews did not exist. A colleague of Faurisson, Jean-Claude Pressac , who initially shared Faurisson's views, later became convinced of the Holocaust's evidence while investigating documents at Auschwitz in 1979. He published his conclusions along with much of

440-599: A Hitlerite-style regime may be impossible, but a replica might be produced in the future; the rehabilitation of Nazism, they concluded, required the discrediting of the Holocaust. Neo-fascism has likewise relied upon Holocaust denial as a means of rehabilitation. As a movement, modern Holocaust denial is associated with historical revisionism based on pseudoscientific evidence and fringe academic networks including intradiegetic pseudoscientific journals, conferences, and professional organizations (e.g. Journal of Historical Review , International Conference to Review

528-517: A case-by-case basis. Conversely they are not as common in common law jurisdictions. The proposed introduction of a criminal code in England and Wales was a significant project of the Law Commission from 1968 to 2008. Due to the strong tradition of legal precedent in the jurisdiction and consequently the large number of binding legal judgements and ambiguous ' common law offences ', as well as

616-443: A common danger or emergency" if necessary, as far as can be expected ("under the circumstances, particularly if it is possible without substantial danger to himself and without violation of other important duties"). Refusing to assist can be punished with up to one year of imprisonment. As a consequence, should an attempt at first aid prove unsuccessful or actually harmful, it will not be prosecuted ( Good Samaritan law ). Note that while

704-488: A contingency plan that if defeat was imminent they would carry out the total destruction of German records. Historians have documented evidence that as Germany 's defeat became imminent and Nazi leaders realized they would most likely be captured and brought to trial, great effort was made to destroy all evidence of mass extermination. Heinrich Himmler instructed his camp commandants to destroy records, crematoria, and other signs of mass extermination. As one of many examples,

792-514: A paid ad from Bradley R Smith. It was quickly criticized, and the editor issued an apology, saying publishing the ad was a mistake. The German philosopher and historian Ernst Nolte , starting in the 1980s, advanced a set of theories, which though not denying the Holocaust appeared to flirt with an Italian Holocaust denier, Carlo Mattogno , as a serious historian. In a letter to the Israeli historian Otto Dov Kulka of December 8, 1986, Nolte criticized

880-468: A protégé of Barnes, David Hoggan , published Der erzwungene Krieg ( The Forced War ) in West Germany, which claimed that Germany had been the victim of an Anglo-Polish conspiracy in 1939. Though Der erzwungene Krieg was primarily concerned with the origins of World War II, it also down-played or justified the effects of Nazi antisemitic measures in the pre-1939 period. For example, Hoggan justified

968-574: A resolution adopted by the Duke University History Department, November 8, 1991, and reprinted in Duke Chronicle , November 13, 1991, in response to an advertisement produced by Bradley R Smith's Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust : That historians are constantly engaged in historical revision is certainly correct; however, what historians do is very different from this advertisement. Historical revision of major events ...

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1056-559: A voluminous dictionary of German language and discourse regarding National Socialism and the Holocaust. It includes chapters on Holocaust trivialization and contrived comparisons, such as the infamous "atomic Holocaust", "Babycaust", "Holocaust of abortion", "red Holocaust" or "biological Holocaust". Lawrence Douglas argues that denial was invented by the perpetrators and employed as a means of genocide. For example, trucks of Zyklon B were labeled with Red Cross symbols and victims were told that they would be " resettled ". Douglas also cites

1144-504: A waiting period, and in rare exceptional cases afterwards. After this compromise was found, there has been relatively little further controversy about the section. Paragraph 219a forbade medical professionals from providing information about any abortion services they offered. The law was enacted in 1933, months after the Nazi party had come to power. It was repealed in 2022. This section requires everybody to "render assistance during accidents or

1232-466: A war of aggression (§ 80), murder, robbery, treason, and counterfeiting money. This section formed the grounds for the lawsuit against Holger Voss . This section, which was in force in some form or other from 1871 to 1994, criminalized sexual acts between males under circumstances that varied as the law was modified over the years. Acts between consenting adults, if not done in the context of prostitution, were excluded from prosecution in 1969. Until 1969

1320-459: A way that could not really be debated." Holocaust deniers have placed "Full page advertisements in college and university newspapers, including those of Brandeis University , Boston College , Pennsylvania State University , and Queens College . Some of these ads arguing that the Holocaust never happened ran without comment; others generated op-ed pieces by professors and students". On September 8, 2009, student newspaper The Harvard Crimson ran

1408-678: Is a constitutionally protected freedom of expression as per s 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms . Keegstra appealed to the Alberta Court of Appeal . That court agreed with Keegstra, and he was acquitted. The Crown then appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Canada , which ruled by a 4–3 majority that promoting hatred could be justifiably restricted under s 1 of the Charter . The Supreme Court restored Keegstra's conviction. He

1496-432: Is deemed influential in regenerating post-war European far-right ideas at a time of identity crisis in the 1950–1960s. His arguments formed the basis of numerous works of Holocaust denial that followed: "testimonies are not reliable, essentially coming from the mouth of Jews and communists", "atrocities committed in camps were the work of deportees [essentially the kapos ]", "disorganization occurred in Nazi camps following

1584-562: Is not concerned with the actuality of these events; rather, it concerns their historical interpretation – their causes and consequences generally. Lipstadt writes that modern Holocaust denial draws its inspiration from various sources, including a school of thought which used an established method to question government policies. In 1992, Donald L. Niewyk gave some examples of how legitimate historical revisionism—the re-examination of accepted history and its updating with newly discovered, more accurate, or less-biased information—may be applied to

1672-628: Is not itself law but which provides the basis for the criminal law of many states. Individual states often choose to make use of criminal codes which are often based, to a varying extent, on the model code. Title 18 of the United States Code is the criminal code for federal crimes. However, Title 18 does not contain many of the general provisions concerning criminal law that are found in the criminal codes of many so-called "civil law" countries. Criminal codes are generally supported for their introduction of consistency to legal systems and for making

1760-417: Is often applied to trials related to Holocaust denial . Outlaws the dissemination or public display of media "which describe cruel or otherwise inhuman acts of violence against human or humanoid beings in a manner which expresses a glorification or rendering harmless of such acts of violence or which represents the cruel or inhuman aspects of the event in a manner which injures human dignity ". This section

1848-424: Is possible certain convicts of murder can spend the rest of their lives in prison). Regulating abortion, in combination with § 218a. Revised several times, with a 1974 liberalization declared unconstitutional by the courts, and historically very controversial. After a multi-partisan compromise was reached during the early 1990s, it permits abortion during the first trimester, upon condition of mandatory counseling and

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1936-509: Is quite vague, there is a lot of debate how this new prohibition is to be handled in court, since software essential to system or network security might be seen to fall under this act as well. Too extensive an interpretation will surely collide with the freedom of exercise of occupation as well as the right to property (Articles 12 and 14 of the Basic Law). In German: Mord . The intentional, successful killing of another person, with at least one of

2024-531: Is the Wehrstrafgesetz to prosecute special crimes within military service such as insubordination (§20 WStG) and desertion (§16 WStG). The German Penal Code is divided into two main parts: General Part ( Allgemeiner Teil ): in which general issues are arranged, for example: Special Part ( Besonderer Teil ): in which the different criminal offences and their definitions and punishments are listed, for example: These sections differ significantly from

2112-497: Is the denial of the Holocaust. The publication of Arthur Butz 's The Hoax of the Twentieth Century : The case against the presumed extermination of European Jewry in 1976; and David Irving 's Hitler's War in 1977 brought other similarly inclined individuals into the fold. Butz was a tenured associate professor of electrical engineering at Northwestern University . In December 1978 and January 1979, Robert Faurisson ,

2200-548: The CDJC , and much of the huge trove of archives were then transferred to the CDJC after the trials and became the core of future Holocaust historiography. The Nuremberg trials were important historically, but the events were still very recent, television was in its infancy and not present, and there was little public impact. There were isolated moments of limited public awareness from Hollywood films such as The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) or

2288-733: The Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War , a German government-funded think tank whose sole purpose was to disseminate the official government position that Germany was the victim of Allied aggression in 1914 and that the Versailles Treaty was morally invalid. Headed by Major Alfred von Wegerer, a völkisch activist, the organization portrayed itself as a scholarly society, but historians later described it as "a clearinghouse for officially desirable views on

2376-685: The Netherlands , Norway , Pakistan , Poland , Russia , Saudi Arabia , South Africa , Spain , Switzerland , Thailand , Turkey , Ukraine , the United Kingdom and the United States , use different penal codes. Holocaust denial Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews , known as the Holocaust , is a fabrication or exaggeration. Holocaust denial includes making one or more of

2464-509: The Posen speeches as an example of denial while genocide was ongoing, with Himmler referring to the Holocaust as "an unnamed and never to be named page of glory". According to Douglas, the denial of mass murder using gas chambers recalls the Nazi efforts to persuade the victims that they were actually harmless showers. While the Second World War was still underway, the Nazis had already formed

2552-507: The "About the IHR" statement on their website, the IHR states, "The IHR does not 'deny' the Holocaust. Indeed, the IHR as such has no 'position' on any specific event...." British historian Richard J. Evans wrote that the Institute's acknowledgment "that a relatively small number of Jews were killed" was a means to draw attention away from its primary beliefs, i.e. that the number of victims was not in

2640-641: The 1930s, the Nazi government used this propaganda against the British, claiming allegations of concentration camps were malicious lies put forward by the British government, and historians Joachim Neander and Randal Marlin note that this story "encouraged later disbelief when early reports circulated about the Holocaust under Hitler". Victor Cavendish-Bentinck , chairman of the British Joint Intelligence Committee, noted that these reports were similar to "stories of employment of human corpses during

2728-805: The 1961 Judgment at Nuremberg which had some newsreel footage of actual scenes from liberated Nazi concentration camps including scenes of piles of naked corpses laid out in rows and bulldozed into large pits, which was considered exceptionally graphic for the time. Public awareness changed when the Eichmann trial riveted the world's attention fifteen years after Nuremberg. In 1961, the Israeli government captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and brought him to Israel to stand trial for war crimes. Chief prosecutor Gideon Hausner 's intentions were not only to demonstrate Eichmann's guilt personally but to present material about

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2816-536: The American INS arrested him in Tennessee , US, on an immigration violations matter, and few days later, Zündel was sent back to Canada, where he tried to gain refugee status. Zündel remained in prison until March 1, 2005, when he was deported to Germany and prosecuted for disseminating hate propaganda. On February 15, 2007, Zündel was convicted on 14 counts of incitement under Germany's Volksverhetzung law, which bans

2904-520: The American far-right activist Willis Carto founded the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), an organization dedicated to publicly challenging the commonly accepted history of the Holocaust. The IHR's founding was inspired by Austin App , a La Salle professor of medieval English literature and considered the first major American holocaust denier. The IHR sought from the beginning to establish itself within

2992-468: The CODOH campus project. He said, "I don't want to spend time with adults anymore, I want to go to students. They are superficial. They are empty vessels to be filled." "What I wanted to do was I wanted to set forth three or four ideas that students might be interested in, that might cause them to think about things or to have questions about things. And I wanted to make it as simple as possible, and to set it up in

3080-575: The German government. This Allied intention to administer justice post-war was first announced in 1943 in the Declaration on German Atrocities in Occupied Europe and reiterated at the Yalta Conference and at Berlin in 1945. While the intention was not specifically to preserve the historical record of the Holocaust, some of the core documents required to prosecute the cases were provided to them by

3168-634: The Global Vision of the Holocaust , Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust ). The first person to openly write after the end of World War II that he doubted the reality of the Holocaust was French journalist Maurice Bardèche in his 1948 book Nuremberg ou la Terre promise ("Nuremberg or the Promised Land"). Viewed as "the father-figure of Holocaust denial", Bardèche introduced in his works many aspects of neo-fascist and Holocaust denial propaganda techniques and ideological structures; his work

3256-465: The Holocaust denial movement bases its approach on the predetermined idea that the Holocaust, as understood by mainstream historiography, did not occur. Sometimes referred to as " negationism ", from the French term négationnisme introduced by Henry Rousso , Holocaust deniers attempt to rewrite history by minimizing, denying, or simply ignoring essential facts. Koenraad Elst writes: Negationism means

3344-742: The Holocaust in 1969 in a book entitled The Myth of the Six Million , which was published by the Noontide Press , a small Los Angeles publisher specializing in antisemitic literature. In 1964, Paul Rassinier published The Drama of the European Jews . Rassinier was himself a concentration camp survivor (he was held in Buchenwald for having helped French Jews escape the Nazis), and modern-day deniers continue to cite his works as scholarly research that questions

3432-655: The Mermelstein case filed motions for summary judgment in consideration of which Judge Thomas T. Johnson of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County took " judicial notice of the fact that Jews were gassed to death at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland during the summer of 1944," judicial notice meaning that the court treated the gas chambers as common knowledge, and therefore did not require evidence that

3520-684: The Second World War", the Allies made the Nazis the "scapegoat" for their own misdeeds. Barnes cited the French Holocaust denier Paul Rassinier , whom Barnes called a "distinguished French historian" who had exposed the "exaggerations of the atrocity stories". In a 1964 article, "Zionist Fraud", published in the American Mercury , Barnes wrote: "The courageous author [Rassinier] lays the chief blame for misrepresentation on those whom we must call

3608-628: The Supreme Court of Canada declared the "false news" law unconstitutional. Zündel had a website, web-mastered by his wife Ingrid, which publicized his viewpoints. In January 2002, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal delivered a ruling in a complaint involving his website, in which it was found to be contravening the Canadian Human Rights Act . The court ordered Zündel to cease communicating hate messages. In February 2003,

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3696-420: The accepted facts of the Holocaust. Critics argued that Rassinier did not cite evidence for his claims and ignored information that contradicted his assertions; he nevertheless remains influential in Holocaust denial circles for being one of the first deniers to propose that a vast Zionist/Allied/Soviet conspiracy faked the Holocaust, a theme that would be picked up in later years by other authors. Austin App ,

3784-448: The aggravating circumstances mentioned in § 211 sec.2 fulfilled. Those circumstances concern base motives, criminal aims or cruel ways of committing the crime. An intentional killing that does not qualify for Mord is called Totschlag (§ 212). § 211 is the only crime within the Strafgesetzbuch that carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment (a sentence of life without parole is not expressly provided for in German law, but it

3872-457: The basis for the confiscation of video games like Wolfenstein 3D or Mortyr and the censorship of Nazi symbolism in World War II -related media until August 2018. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan himself made a complaint in 2016 against German satirist Jan Böhmermann as a private person because of an alleged insult. The Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, Numan Kurtulmuş , called

3960-444: The bodies of the 25,000 mostly Latvian Jews whom Friedrich Jeckeln and the soldiers under his command had shot at Rumbula (near Riga ) in late 1941 were dug up and burned in 1943. Similar operations were undertaken at Belzec , Treblinka and other death camps. In occupied France , the situation with respect to preserving war records was not much better, partly as a result of French state secrecy rules dating back to well before

4048-600: The broad tradition of historical revisionism, by soliciting token supporters who were not from a neo-Nazi background such as James J. Martin and Samuel Edward Konkin III , and by promoting the writings of French socialist Paul Rassinier and American anti-war historian Harry Elmer Barnes, in an attempt to show that Holocaust denial had a base of support beyond neo-Nazis. The IHR republished most of Barnes's writings, which had been out of print since his death. While it included articles on other topics and sold books by mainstream historians,

4136-448: The criminal codes in other countries, and/or are relevant for topics discussed in other articles. Outlaws the distribution or public use of symbols of unconstitutional groups, in particular, flags, insignia, uniforms, slogans and forms of greeting. The laws ban most Nazi insignia from any usage for propagating the ideology outside artistic, scientific, research, or opposition uses ( swastikas , SS sig runes , Totenkopf , Othala rune ,

4224-588: The criminal law more accessible to laypeople. A code may help avoid a chilling effect where legislation and case law appears to be either inaccessible or beyond comprehension to non-lawyers. Alternatively critics have argued that codes are too rigid and that they fail to provide enough flexibility for the law to be effective. Jurisdictions of many countries, such as Algeria , Argentina , Australia , Austria , Brazil , Canada , Chile , China , Denmark , Egypt , Finland , France , Germany , India , Iran , Israel , Italy , Japan , South Korea , Mexico ,

4312-506: The defense, Fred A. Leuchter , David Irving and Robert Faurisson . The pseudo-scientific Leuchter report was presented as a defense document and was published in Canada in 1988 by Zundel's Samisdat Publishers, and in Britain in 1989 by Irving's Focal Point Publishing. In both of his trials, Zündel was defended by Douglas Christie and Barbara Kulaszka . His conviction was overturned in 1992 when

4400-453: The denial of historical crimes against humanity . It is not a reinterpretation of known facts, but the denial of known facts. The term negationism has gained currency as the name of a movement to deny a specific crime against humanity, the Nazi genocide on the Jews in 1941–45, also known as the Holocaust (Greek: complete burning) or the Shoah (Hebrew: disaster). Negationism is mostly identified with

4488-498: The documentation of Nazi crimes as propaganda and took steps against it. Eisenhower, upon finding the victims of Nazi concentration camps, ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and made to bury the dead. The Nuremberg trials took place in Germany after the war in 1945–1946. The stated aim was to dispense justice in retribution for atrocities of

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4576-431: The duty, in itself, only exists so far as one is actually capable of providing aid, having passed a course in first aid is required for a driving license, and thus on this level is expected from all motorised traffic participants. Penal code Criminal codes are relatively common in civil law jurisdictions, which tend to build legal systems around codes and principles which are relatively abstract and apply them on

4664-685: The effort at re-writing history in such a way that the fact of the Holocaust is omitted. In "Secondary Anti-Semitism: From Hard-Core to Soft-Core Denial of the Shoah", Clemens Heni  [ de ] writes: Contrary to the hard-core version, soft-core denial is often not easily identifiable. Often it is tolerated, or even encouraged and reproduced in the mainstream, not only in Germany. Scholars have only recently begun to unravel this disturbing phenomenon. Manfred Gerstenfeld discusses Holocaust trivialization in an article published in 2008. In Germany in 2007 two scholars, Thorsten Eitz and Georg Stötzel, published

4752-460: The entire Holocaust, thus producing a comprehensive record. The Israeli government arranged for the trial to have prominent media coverage. Many major newspapers from all over the globe sent reporters and published front-page coverage of the story. Israelis had the opportunity to watch live television broadcasts of the proceedings, and videotape was flown daily to the United States for broadcast

4840-582: The euphemism revisionism instead. In some former Eastern Bloc countries, Holocaust deniers do not deny the mass murder of Jews but deny the participation of their own nationals in the Holocaust. Holocaust denial is considered a serious societal problem in many places where it occurs, and it is illegal in Canada, Israel, and many European countries . Holocaust deniers prefer to refer to their work as historical revisionism, and object to being referred to as " deniers ". Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt has written that: "The deniers' selection of

4928-496: The first German defeats", "the high mortality is due to the 'weakening' of prisoners and epidemics", "only lice were gassed in Auschwitz ", etc. Harry Elmer Barnes , at one time a mainstream American historian, assumed a Holocaust-denial stance in his later years. Between World War I and World War II , Barnes was an anti-war writer and a leader of the historical revisionism movement. Starting in 1924, Barnes worked closely with

5016-538: The following day. In the immediate aftermath of the war, prior to the extensive documentation efforts by the Allied forces, a sense of disbelief caused many to deny the initial reports of the Holocaust. Compounding this disbelief was the memory of forged newspaper accounts of the German Corpse Factory , an anti-German atrocity propaganda campaign during WWI, which was widely known to be false by 1945. During

5104-547: The following false claims: The methodologies of Holocaust deniers are based on a predetermined conclusion that ignores overwhelming historical evidence to the contrary . Scholars use the term denial to describe the views and methodology of Holocaust deniers in order to distinguish them from legitimate historical revisionists , who challenge orthodox interpretations of history using established historical methodologies . Holocaust deniers generally do not accept denial as an appropriate description of their activities and use

5192-654: The gas chambers at Auschwitz. Mermelstein, in turn, submitted a notarized account of his internment at Auschwitz and how he witnessed Nazi guards ushering his mother and two sisters and others towards (as he learned later) gas chamber number five. Despite this, the IHR refused to pay the reward. Represented by public interest attorney William John Cox , Mermelstein subsequently sued the IHR in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County for breach of contract , anticipatory repudiation , libel , injurious denial of established fact , intentional infliction of emotional distress , and declaratory relief . On October 9, 1981, both parties in

5280-514: The gas chambers existed. On August 5, 1985, Judge Robert A. Wenke entered a judgment based upon the Stipulation for Entry of Judgment agreed upon by the parties on July 22, 1985. The judgment required IHR and other defendants to pay $ 90,000 to Mermelstein and to issue a letter of apology to "Mr. Mel Mermelstein, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald, and all other survivors of Auschwitz" for "pain, anguish and suffering" caused to them. In

5368-516: The huge one billion Reichsmark fine imposed on the entire Jewish community in Germany after the 1938 Kristallnacht as a reasonable measure to prevent what he called "Jewish profiteering" at the expense of German insurance companies and alleged that no Jews were killed in the Kristallnacht (in fact, 91 German Jews were murdered in the Kristallnacht ). Subsequently, Hoggan explicitly denied

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5456-598: The incitement of hatred against a portion of the population and given the maximum sentence of five years in prison. In 1987, Bradley R. Smith, a former media director of the Institute for Historical Review, founded the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH). In the United States, CODOH has repeatedly attempted to place advertisements questioning whether the Holocaust happened, especially in college campus newspapers. Bradley Smith took his message to college students—with little success. Smith referred to his tactics as

5544-673: The last war for the manufacture of fat which was a grotesque lie"; likewise, The Christian Century commented that "The parallel between this story and the 'corpse factory' atrocity tale of the First World War is too striking to be overlooked." Neander notes that "There can be no doubt that the reported commercial use of the corpses of the murdered Jews undermined the credibility of the news coming from Poland and delayed action that might have rescued many Jewish lives." The Neo-Nazi movement has been revitalized by Holocaust denial. Small but vocal numbers of Neo-Nazis realized that recreation of

5632-462: The legal basis of criminal law in Germany. After the defeat of Nazi Germany , a number of prohibiting provisions were included in the Strafgesetzbuch : In 2002 German public prosecutors were empowered to prosecute crimes against humanity , war crimes and genocide internationally under the Völkerstrafgesetzbuch ("Code of Crimes against international Law"). Another special penal code

5720-498: The majority of material published and distributed by IHR was devoted to questioning the facts surrounding the Holocaust. In 1980, the IHR promised a $ 50,000 reward to anyone who could prove that Jews were gassed at Auschwitz. Mel Mermelstein wrote a letter to the editors of the Los Angeles Times and others including The Jerusalem Post . The IHR wrote back, offering him $ 50,000 for proof that Jews were, in fact, gassed in

5808-565: The millions and that Jews were not systematically murdered in gas chambers. In 1984, James Keegstra , a Canadian high-school teacher, was charged under the Canadian Criminal Code for "promoting hatred against an identifiable group by communicating anti-Semitic statements to his students". During class, he would describe Jews as a people of profound evil who had "created the Holocaust to gain sympathy." He also tested his students in exams on his theories and opinion of Jews. Keegstra

5896-414: The name revisionist to describe themselves is indicative of their basic strategy of deceit and distortion and of their attempt to portray themselves as legitimate historians engaged in the traditional practice of illuminating the past." Scholars consider this misleading since the methods of Holocaust denial differ from those of legitimate historical revision. Legitimate historical revisionism is explained in

5984-746: The neo-Nazi version of the Celtic Cross , the swastikas versions of the Iron Cross and Reichsadler , Wolfsangel , the party and Reichkriegsflagge Nazi flags, the Sturmabteilung emblem, the Nazi salute and the greetings "Heil Hitler" or "Sieg Heil", are outlawed under the law) it also extends to bans on symbols of the Communist Party of Germany ( Hammer and sickle , red star and red flag are under it), ISIS Black Standard , and Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) pennant. This section has been

6072-565: The new National Office for Veterans and Victims of War ; however, the bureau then held them in secret, refusing to release copies later, even to the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation (CDJC). In 1943, Isaac Schneersohn , anticipating the need for a center to document and preserve the memory of the persecution for historical reasons and also support claims post-war, gathered together 40 representatives from Jewish organizations in Grenoble which

6160-464: The occurrence of the Holocaust, has claimed that the Wannsee Conference of 1942 never happened and that the minutes of the conference were post-war forgeries done by "biased" Jewish historians designed to discredit Germany. The British historian Ian Kershaw has argued that Nolte was operating on the borderlines of Holocaust denial with his implied claim that the "negative myth" of Nazi Germany

6248-427: The often inconsistent nature of English law, the creation of a satisfactory code became very difficult. The project was officially abandoned in 2008 although as of 2009 it has been revived. A statutory Criminal Law Codification Advisory Committee for Irish criminal law met from 2007 to 2010 and its Draft Criminal Code and Commentary was published in 2011. In the United States, a Model Penal Code exists which

6336-566: The outbreak of the war." Following World War II, Barnes became convinced that allegations made against Germany and Japan , including the Holocaust, were wartime propaganda that had been used to justify the United States' involvement in World War II. Barnes claimed that there were two false claims made about World War II, namely that Germany started the war in 1939, and the Holocaust, which Barnes claimed did not happen. In his 1962 pamphlet, Revisionism and Brainwashing , Barnes claimed that there

6424-466: The poem a "serious crime against humanity". On 1 June 2017 the German Bundestag decided by a unanimous vote to repeal this section. This decision went into effect on 1 January 2018. Section 3 outlaws denying the genocide committed under the rule of National Socialism (1933–1945). Section 4 prohibits glorifying or approving the reign of the Nazis. Section 130 makes it a crime to: This section

6512-453: The section also criminalized sexual acts between humans and animals. No corresponding legislation against lesbian sex acts existed. Highly controversial, it outlaws the preparation of an act of data espionage (§ 202a) or data interception (§ 202b) by making, obtaining, selling, distributing (or otherwise committing or making accessible to others) As the definition of a "program with the purpose of committing data espionage or data interception"

6600-516: The study of the Holocaust as new facts emerge to change the historical understanding of it: With the main features of the Holocaust clearly visible to all but the willfully blind, historians have turned their attention to aspects of the story for which the evidence is incomplete or ambiguous. These are not minor matters by any means, but turn on such issues as Hitler's role in the event, Jewish responses to persecution, and reactions by onlookers both inside and outside Nazi-controlled Europe. In contrast,

6688-439: The swindlers of the crematoria, the Israeli politicians who derive billions of marks from nonexistent, mythical and imaginary cadavers, whose numbers have been reckoned in an unusually distorted and dishonest manner." Using Rassinier as his source, Barnes claimed that Germany was the victim of aggression in both 1914 and 1939 and that reports of the Holocaust were propaganda to justify a war of aggression against Germany. In 1961,

6776-685: The underlying evidence in his 1989 book, Auschwitz: Technique and operation of the gas chambers . Henry Bienen , the former president of Northwestern University, has described Arthur Butz's view of the Holocaust as an "embarrassment to Northwestern". In 2006, sixty of Butz's colleagues from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science faculty signed a censure describing Butz's Holocaust denial as "an affront to our humanity and our standards as scholars". The letter also called for Butz to "leave our Department and our University and stop trading on our reputation for academic excellence". In 1978

6864-556: The war aimed at protecting the French government and the state from embarrassing revelations, and partly to avoid culpability. For example, at Liberation , the Prefecture of Police destroyed nearly all of the massive archive of Jewish arrest and deportation. One of the earliest efforts to save historical record of the Holocaust occurred during the war, in France, where Drancy internment camp records were carefully preserved and turned over to

6952-414: The work of Holocaust deniers as superior to "mainstream scholars". Nolte wrote that "radical revisionists have presented research which, if one is familiar with the source material and the critique of the sources, is probably superior to that of the established historians of Germany". In a 1994 interview with Der Spiegel magazine, Nolte stated "I cannot rule out the importance of the investigation of

7040-598: The work of the French Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson on the ground that the Holocaust did occur, but went on to argue that Faurisson's work was motivated by what Nolte claimed were the admirable motives of sympathy towards the Palestinians and opposition to Israel. In his 1987 book Der europäische Bürgerkrieg ( The European Civil War ), Nolte claimed that the intentions of Holocaust deniers are "often honourable", and that some of their claims are "not obviously without foundation". Nolte himself, though he has never denied

7128-411: Was a "lack of any serious opposition or concerted challenge to the atrocity stories and other modes of defamation of German national character and conduct". Barnes argued that there was "a failure to point out the atrocities of the Allies were more brutal, painful, mortal and numerous than the most extreme allegations made against the Germans". He claimed that in order to justify the "horrors and evils of

7216-573: Was changed many times in the following decades in response not only to changing moral concepts and constitutional provision granted by the Grundgesetz , but also to scientific and technical reforms. Examples of such new crimes are money laundering or computer sabotage . The Penal Code is a codification of criminal law and the pivotal legal text, while supplementary laws contain provisions affecting criminal law, such as definitions of new types of crime and law enforcement action. The StGB constitutes

7304-490: Was charged under s 281.2(2) of the Criminal Code (now s 319(2)), which provides that "Every one who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group" commits a criminal offense. He was convicted at trial before the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench . The court rejected the argument, advanced by Keegstra and his lawyer, Doug Christie , that promoting hatred

7392-438: Was created by Jewish historians, his allegations of the domination of Holocaust scholarship by "biased" Jewish historians, and his statements that one should withhold judgment on Holocaust deniers, whom Nolte takes considerable pains to stress are not exclusively Germans or fascists. In Kershaw's opinion, Nolte is attempting to imply that perhaps Holocaust deniers are on to something. In a 1990 interview, Nolte implied that there

7480-401: Was fired from his teaching position shortly afterward. The Toronto-based photo retoucher Ernst Zündel operated a small-press called Samisdat Publishers , which published and distributed Holocaust-denial material such as Did Six Million Really Die? by Richard Harwood (a pseudonym of Richard Verrall  – a British neo-Nazi). In 1985, he was tried in R. v. Zundel and convicted under

7568-535: Was something to the Leuchter report : "If the revisionists [Holocaust deniers] and Leuchter among them have made it clear to the public that even 'Auschwitz' must be an object of scientific inquiry and controversy then they should be given credit for this. Even if it finally turned out that the number of victims was even greater and the procedures were even more horrific than has been assumed until now." In his 1993 book Streitpunkte ( Points of Contention ), Nolte praised

7656-414: Was under Italian occupation at the time in order to form a center de documentation . Exposure meant the death penalty, and as a result little actually happened before liberation . Serious work began after the center moved to Paris in late 1944 and was renamed the CDJC. In 1945, General Dwight D. Eisenhower , Supreme Allied Commander, anticipated that someday an attempt would be made to recharacterize

7744-421: Was used as the legal basis for confiscating some horror movies and a few video games such as Mortal Kombat , Manhunt , and Condemned . Outlaws rewarding or approving of crimes "publicly, in a meeting or through dissemination of writings […], and in a manner that is capable of disturbing the public peace". This only applies to crimes where failure to report is an offense (§ 138), among them preparation of

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