A leading German neo-Nazi already convicted of inciting racism has been arrested on new charges of Holocaust-denial and racial incitement.
Gunter Deckert, the former chairman of the extreme right-wing National Democratic Party, was arrested Nov. 8 Frankfurt airport upon his arrival from Spain.
Police officials said Deckert was arrested in connection with a book he co- published, “The Case of Gunter Deckert.”
Police may charge him with writing anti-Semitic portions of the book and with its distribution, both of which are illegal under Germany’s laws against provoking racial incitement.
In April, Deckert was sentenced to two years imprisonment for translating and circulating a speech delivered at a 1991 neo-Nazi rally by Fred Leuchter, an American Holocaust denier.
Deckert was expected to start serving the two-year sentence by the end of the month.
The case, which has been the subject of the three trials in as many years, created a stir here and abroad last year, when a state court in the southwestern city of Mannheim gave Deckert a one-year suspended sentence, describing him as a dedicated nationalist who resented the moral and financial demands Jews have made on Germany in the wake of the Holocaust.
Two judges who issued the sympathetic statement were removed from the bench amid an international outcry, and another trial was held a which April’s verdict was reached.
That verdict was upheld in October by a federal appeals court.
In a related development, neo-Nazi activist Mainolf Schonborn was sentenced last week to 27 months’ imprisonment.
A court in the western German city of Dortmund found the 40-year-old extremist guilty of relaunching a neo-Nazi organization that had been banned by the authorities.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
