Ernst Zündel: His Struggle for Germany

Without any doubt, Ernst Zündel certainly deserves the title of being the most courageous, active, resourceful, pugnacious and also the most effective “Holocaust” Revisionist that ever existed. One may or may not agree with his views and may or may not endorse his methods. But this judgment is unavoidable for both friend and foe. After a twenty years lasting uninterrupted struggle for the restitution of the honor of his German people and his fatherland Germany, the war-weary Ernst Zündel intended originally to retreat to the Tennessee Mountains and to retire together with his wife Ingrid Rimland. For the last two years he dedicated almost all of his time to his hobby, which is painting landscapes. For him, the struggle of his life was over; others were supposed to rule the roost. But fate had other, quite cruel plans with him, that is, to have him spend the rest of his life behind bars in a German dungeon. As a tribute to the accomplishments of this great German, whose struggle will now unfortunately keep on going, his life will be summarized and honored in this article. May his courage and perseverance be a shining example for the young generation.

1939-1958: Childhood and Youth

Ernst Zündel was born on April 24, 1939, in Calmbach in the Black Forest, Germany, the fourth of six children of lumberjack Fritz Zündel and his wife, Gertrud Zündel, née Meyer, who came from the Augsburg region. From 1938 to 1947, his father, a confirmed Social-Democrat, was in the military as a medic-first at the front and then in American captivity. His mother was a devout Christian.

World War II and its dreadful aftermath for Germany made a lasting impression on the little boy, especially the Allied bombing attacks and the aggravating and dangerous strafing attacks of the fighter bombers, called Jabos, which attacked everything in Germany that moved in the fields, forests, meadows, and on the roads and rails. Added to this were the hunger, the cold, and the bitter privation following Germany's collapse.

Zündel's first school days found him in the basement of his hometown's Protestant church, because the French occupation authorities had billeted soldiers in the local school. Despite malnutrition and the resultant illnesses such as pneumonia, hunger edema etc., the youngster turned out to be a good student, a talented and intelligent but painfully shy boy. Art, history, and essay writing were his favorite subjects in school.

Starving and frequently ill, he was nonetheless soon drawing beetles, bees, and flowers for his classmates or helping them with homework assignments and writing essays for children of “wealthy” parents. In this way, he earned his first “extra rations”-a jam sandwich every now and then.

Before long, the teachers alerted Mother Zündel to her son's artistic talent, and as a result she found an apprenticeship position for him in Pforzheim, known as the “Golden City” before the war, a city which had been almost entirely destroyed by massive bombing raids just shortly before the war's end and where up to 20,000 people had been cremated alive in a horrendous fire storm.

Ernst Zündel in trade school 1954

Zundel with Adrien Arcand 1963-his Political Mentor, prior to leaving on a 3 1/2 month tour of Europe to meet and interview famous writers, politicians and former soldiers

Zündel completed his apprenticeship years in a Graphic Arts Institute in bombed-out Pforzheim, 20 km away. He also attended classes for three years in the Graphic Arts Department of the Trade School. He passed his journeyman's exam with good grades and tried to advance in his profession by applying for a job in Osnabrück, in far-distant northern Germany. One of his reasons for this first “emigration” was to learn proper German-until then he had spoken only Swabian, a dialect which is rather different from High German-and also to rid himself, unobserved by his family and friends, of his troubling shyness. In both he succeeded only to a degree.

1957 was the time of Allied-imposed German re-armament, a process pushed by Konrad Adenauer. Zündel had been raised as a Christian and pacifist and for this reason soon found himself facing a dilemma regarding the impending term of military service. He decided to emigrate a second time, this time for real to overseas, in order to avoid conscription into the Bundeswehr, the German Armed Forces. At that time Canada was the only country in the Western world, which did not require compulsory military service of young men. Canada became his country of choice.

New Home Abroad

September 3, 1958: 19-year-old Zündel arrived in French-speaking Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He did not know anyone there. He spoke only a few words of English, which he had learned through a correspondence course. He did not speak any French. Soon afterwards he boarded an immigrants' train to Toronto, where English was spoken.

In the English night school for immigrants in Toronto, which Zündel attended immediately after his arrival in Canada in order to improve his language skills, he met an intelligent and pretty French-Canadian woman who became his wife one year later. This very young marriage produced two sons.

Soon after, the Zündel family relocated back to the French-speaking part of Canada and settled in Montreal, Quebec, where Zündel met Adrien Arcand, the French-Canadian author, newspaper publisher, political philosopher and party leader of a pre-war, pro-German, National-Socialist Christian Party.

Prior to WWII, Mr. Arcand had been a well-known man in Canada. During the war, he had been locked up for six years in a Canadian concentration camp for his political views-without a charge, without a trial, without a sentence, only on the suspicion that he might pose a “risk to Canada” during the war. In this camp Arcand contracted a kidney ailment from which he never fully recovered. Neither he nor other party members who had been imprisoned along with him, among them Camillien Houd, the French-Canadian Mayor of Montreal, Quebec, Canada's largest metropolis, ever received so much as a cent in “restitution”!

Like all young people of his post-war generation, Zündel had been taught to hate Hitler and all he stood for and had been brainwashed by Allied occupation authorities-produced books in post-war German schools. Canadian business associates soon suggested to Zündel that he should visit Arcand, due to the latter's political background and historical knowledge, especially of German-Jewish matters and World War II history. Even though at that time Zündel, like all the young people his age who had gone through the post-war German school system under Allied occupation control, had never doubted the officially taught, Allied-imposed version of Third Reich history, the books and documents he found in Arcand's library soon made him first curious, then suspicious of what he had been told regarding World War II. This new information eventually changed his life.

Arcand took the young German under his wings because he understood and knew how to counter the poison of “re-education,” the false picture of history instilled in Zündel's young mind by the Allied “re-educators”. He did this with historical truth from original sources, documents and books in order to enhance Zündel's understanding of historical analysis. Under Arcand's influence and guidance, his knowledge and his personal library encompassing more than four thousand volumes, to which he granted the young German free access, Zündel's thinking soon began to detoxify and to recuperate. It was thus a French-Canadian who turned the young immigrant, thirsting for historical truth and political knowledge, into a thinking German-in distant Canada!

And so it happened that, as news reports reached him in Canada about the first great Auschwitz show trial in Germany in the early 1960s, Zündel already felt the first doubts and Revisionist stirrings. Despite a demanding day-job as graphic artist and photo retoucher he continued to attend evening classes at Sir George Williams University in Montreal, where he studied political science, history and architecture. He wrote his own column, titled “Politics: Past, Present and Future”, for the student newspaper, and contributed items to the university television broadcasts, as well as articles for the ethnic press.

About that time, the Cuban Crisis awakened the Canadians' interest in the threat of Communism, and Zündel began to give anti-Communist lectures at private clubs such as Kiwanis, Rotary etc., in churches, schools, lodges, at businessmen's lunches etc. He also discovered his talent for political radio commentaries and live debates. Almost every evening or night, Montreal residents could hear Zündel on well-known radio talk shows, where he soon became the local Communists' and Zionists' verbal nemesis. Often, stations invited him as guest panelist or participant for hours long broadcasts.

ündel painted a great deal in his spare time and soon became widely known for his landscape paintings and watercolors, of which he sold more than 700 in Canada and around the world. His paintings and graphic artwork also earned him extra cash, awards and public recognition. In his free time, by writing about current events to newspaper offices and radio and television stations, he persistently defended his homeland, Germany, against anti-German hate propaganda, which was ever more on the rise.

First Political Activities

Soon a group of like-minded people found themselves drawn to him. Together with his friends, he organized demonstrations and protests outside movie theaters and newspaper offices, which presented slanderous anti-German films, articles and sentiments and which engaged in negative stereotyping and hate propaganda against his homeland. This resulted in frequent television and radio interviews on the topic of the German concentration camps, the National Socialist government's policy toward Jews, Gypsies etc.

Ernst Zündel as commercial artist, 1973

Zundel declaring his candidacy for Prime Minister of Canada, Spring, 1968

Thus, Zündel saw himself forced to deal psychologically, intellectually, and historically with National Socialism and with the phenomenon later to be referred to as “the Holocaust”. At that time, the word “Holocaust” had not yet entered the Canadian vocabulary as a synonym for the alleged extermination of the Jews. The term did not become generally accepted until 1977 through the television miniseries by that name, based on a novel by Gerald Greene.

In 1967, Lester Pearson, head of the Liberal Party and Canadian Prime Minister, resigned for health reasons. Zündel ran for the position of Head of the Liberal Party who would automatically become Prime Minster of Canada, if elected as Party leader. Even though he was an immigrant and the youngest candidate ever to run for that office in the history of Canada, he made it to the finals and addressed a live audience of 25,000 people in the Sports Stadium of Ottawa. There, he pleaded for an end to anti-German propaganda in the Canadian media and for the reunification of his homeland. The speech was broadcast by all the radio and television stations in Canada.

To his amazement, his then pending application for Canadian citizenship was turned down by the government of the day-without explanation!

In 1968, having become financially independent thanks to his talent as graphic artist and painter, Zündel embarked on an almost one-year-long tour of Africa, the Middle East, Israel, India, and Asia all the way to Japan, to expand his political horizon and understanding of political conflicts. He read, analyzed and digested everything about history he could get his hands on, especially from Jewish sources, and worked hard on acquiring an independent education. Intensive studies of, and interviews with, political thinkers from every persuasion and nationality, as well as with politicians, writers, military leaders and eyewitnesses of World War II to university professors and book authors from many parts of the world, followed next.

The Becoming of a Holocaust Revisionist

In the early 1970s, Zündel again roamed the world with notepad, tape recorder and film camera. He met Thies Christophersen who wrote a booklet entitled Die Auschwitz-Lüge (The Auschwitz Lie), which Zündel translated into English and then published. This was a key event for the young German national.

Christophersen was a German agronomist who had been stationed in Auschwitz during the war and, together with Auschwitz inmates, had worked in the satellite camp at Raisko to produce natural rubber, which the Germans desperately needed, from dandelions and other plants. He even spent his honeymoon in the Auschwitz camp area. After the war, he wrote a frank and honest account of his observations and experiences there. In this booklet, he stated that he saw no gas chambers in Auschwitz, even though he had free access to all areas of the camp for over a year.

Soon Zündel also published the writings of American Professor Dr. Austin App, one of the best-known German-American community leaders of the post-War period, and translated and published his study The Six-Million Swindle.

Because Zündel rebelled and, unlike anybody else in Canada, did something against anti-German hate propaganda, his name soon became a household word. Time and again, his anti-Holocaust demonstrations were mentioned in the press and shown on television. Rapidly he became very well known overseas as well.

In the winter of 1977 and spring of 1978, together with friends, Zündel organized letter-writing campaigns to government agencies on all levels in Canada, the United States, and Germany, and protested against the growing and ever-escalating anti-German propaganda in the press and the broadcasting media. In these early years, well-known Canadian politicians and journalists commented in a positive vein on this topic and his activities.

In summer and fall of 1978, Zündel and his friends protested almost on a daily basis against anti-German hate films on TV, especially against the historically false, emotion-laden miniseries Holocaust, which was broadcast throughout North America every night for a week, along with much maudlin promotional hype in the press. Many interviews on the radio, on TV and in the press followed. The Holocaust Lobby reacted fiercely to Zündel and his friends, who were soon viciously verbally attacked and slandered as “Nazis” by commentators, columnists, and politicians looking for votes.

Spring/summer 1979: Zündel and his rapidly-growing worldwide circle of like-minded friends continued to demonstrate publicly against anti-German hate films on the topic of the “Holocaust,” which were being broadcast ever more frequently throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, and even in Argentina, Chile, and Australia. Zündel organized counter-demonstrations in many places and countries. The Johannesburg/South Africa office of the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel-embarrassed by being called “Nestbeschmutzer” (befoulers of their own nest)-called Zündel in Toronto and asked that the demonstrations outside their downtown offices be stopped. In return, Der Spiegel offered to report about Zündel's worldwide “anti-Holocaust campaign”.

Zündel's friends agreed to stop. A team of Spiegel reporters did, in fact, come to Toronto from New York, took pictures and made tape recordings of Zündel's group at work. However, the interview with Zündel was never printed in Der Spiegel. This was a painful but valuable lesson for Zündel.

At the end of 1979, Zündel attended a conference at Northrop University in California, where the “Institute for Historical Review” was founded. There, he conferred with Revisionists from around world, all of whom, to his amazement, had also researched and questioned the so-called “Holocaust” for years. It was there that he found stimulating intellectual reinforcement, as well as companions and invaluable contacts.

Zündel was most impressed by Dr. Arthur Butz, Professor at Northwestern University and author of the trailblazing study and soon-to-be standard Revisionist text The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, and by Professor Dr. Robert Faurisson of the Lyon II University in France. Zündel was impressed by Dr. Faurisson's downright fanatical devotion to detail and historical truth and by his research and document discoveries in the archives in Auschwitz and other former German concentration camps in the East. Especially Dr. Faurisson's scientific, photo-documented comparisons of American gas chambers and alleged German “gas chambers of the Third Reich” amazed and astounded Zündel. This had a profound impact on him. He promised Dr. Faurisson to pursue these clues independently in North America.

Spring/summer 1980: Zündel met Ditlieb Felderer, the Swedish Revisionist, who, beginning in the 1970s, had undertaken numerous arduous trips and had conducted more than 30 examinations and investigations of Auschwitz and the other former German concentration camps in the East, collected many artifacts, recorded valuable interviews and taken over 30,000 color slides of the sites. Zündel also went on America-wide lecture tours with Thies Christophersen, Udo Walendy and other Revisionists.

Zündel's publishing firm, Samisdat Publishers, also at first purchased and then produced the first Canadian edition of a British publication Did Six Million Really Die?, authored by Richard Harwood, an Englishman. In the middle 1970s, this publication-a most fateful one for Zündel-had already begun its triumphal march as an international revisionist bestseller through 18 nations and 12 translations. In the fall and winter of 1980, Zündel distributed many tens of thousands of copies of Did Six Million Really Die? worldwide in several languages, free of charge, financed by donations, to university professors, teachers, clergymen, politicians, and media outlets in North America and Europe.

The Holocaust Lobby sounded the alarm about this “Zündel Truth in History” campaign! There were many interviews from all parts of the world, and this politically uncomfortable publication was even sent to the British Columbia Minister of Justice by someone in the hope that he would move to prosecute Zündel. He did not!

Beginning of Persecution

In spring and summer 1981, Zündel distributed tens of thousands of audiocassettes with Revisionist content worldwide-again free of charge, again financed by donations. An almost simultaneous mass mailing of tens of thousands of his autobiographical booklet An mein Volk (To My People) to friends and European recipients of his newsletters resulted in a media uproar in Germany and Canada-and house searches in Germany: Late March 1981 saw a flood of almost 2,000 German police raids on the homes of Zündel supporters, from Flensburg all the way to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, to confiscate this revisionist material. Everywhere, the search teams demanded and confiscated Zündel's tapes and the so-called “hate-mongering green booklet” titled An mein Volk! It is said that truckloads of seized material were sent to Stuttgart, where legal proceedings had been instituted against Zündel for “incitement of the people”. These German raids caused a big stir in the Canadian media as well.

On May 31, 1981, 2000 Jewish demonstrators gathered in front of the Zündel-House in Toronto's downtown streets, waving placards and chanting in unison to demand charges against Zündel and his deportation from Canada. The police could hardly restrain the milling, agitated crowd. Zündel's team guarded the building from the inside. Equipped with tape recorders and movie cameras and disguised as reporters, other friends and supporters mingled with the demonstrators and photographed and documented the pandemonium and their threats of assassination and arson against Zündel. This resulted in the first educational video Genocide by Propaganda made of the footage gathered that day. This color video dealing with anti-German hate propaganda, the Holocaust etc., was also distributed to the North American media, mostly free of charge, again financed by donations. Again, many press, TV and radio interviews followed.

In November 1981, in an unprecedented move, the Canadian state denied Zündel his postal privileges! Zündel was banned from mailing anything within Canada, or from Canada to abroad. No letters, no bills, no tax papers, nothing at all could now be mailed to or by Zündel anywhere or anytime! Failure to comply with the postal ban, he was informed, would mean four years' imprisonment. This decree was not based on any kind of verdict in a trial; it was imposed dictatorially and unilaterally by the Postal Minister alone and was immediately put into force by “Postal Police” with no prior warning. Fortunately, Canadian law granted Zündel the right to appeal to a Postal Tribunal and to have the matter investigated. Zündel appealed the ban and asked for the establishment of a tribunal.

The government had no choice to create such a tribunal, since Zündel insists on his right. During that tribunal, the wealthy Jewess, Sabina Citron from the “Canadian Holocaust Remembrance Association” and none other than the notorious “Nazi hunter” Simon Wiesenthal turned out to be the true instigators of the persecution directed against Zündel.

As a result of this, Zündel was now fighting for his professional survival. Fortunately, he achieved several legal modifications. For one, his graphic arts studio was exempted from the postal ban, and so Zündel managed to survive economically, albeit only barely. The once-thriving company Samisdat Publishing, however, began to lose its financial footing due to this postal ban. Only over-the-counter sales were possible. Tapes and book sales fell off rapidly. Frightened supporters sent fewer donations. His enemies gloated and already saw victory in sight.

All the while, the name “Zündel” and his message were spreading despite or because of the ban. Educational revisionist mailings from the United States maintained the connection via an American address with his ever-growing, worldwide circle of friends, especially in the English-speaking world.

End of 1982, a new era of mass education starts for Zündel: VHS tapes with documentaries about Holocaust revisionism are being copied by the hundreds in the far-flung corners of the world by supporters. Hundreds were sent to Zündel's now global circle of friends via the still-functional American outpost. These videos were a big hit with supporters all over the world. It was American free-speech supporters and financial donors who kept Zündel's operation alive in these critical eleven months. The American pillar of his work stood firm! The technical conversion to video was made possible particularly by generous donations from elderly German women and men who could still clearly remember the Second World War. These oldsters made great personal sacrifices at that time. Ernst Zündel became their spokesman and hero. He closed the generation gap. Finally here was a voice which spoke of their sufferings during the War and which defended their Generation and Germany's honor!

In late summer of 1982, Zündel's German passport expired. The German Consulate refused to issue him a new one. Now Zündel could not even travel to the neighboring country, America. He was stuck in Canada like a mouse in a trap. In Germany, attorney Jürgen Rieger fought for Zündel's freedom in the Stuttgart proceedings conducted against him for “inciting the people” as well as for his right to receive a new German passport. In the course of these proceedings, Rieger was able to look at 200 pages of top-secret documents from the German state. These documents, for the first time ever, provided written evidence of the Federal Republic of Germany's vassal status to the Jewish lobby and made this state of affairs shockingly clear! These papers also included letters from snoops and informers, which the German Consulates and the German Embassy in Canada evidently utilized in Canada to obtain information on German-Canadians in that country, including their names and addresses.

A brief example, stated in one document: On the occasion of a visit to the Consulate, the German Consul in Toronto received a petition from one of the Jewish leaders of Toronto, requesting that the Consul provide him (the Jewish leader) with incriminating materials on Zündel. The Consul assured him that he had none! Seeking help and advice and trying to be obliging, he wrote to the Foreign Office in Bonn. The people there promised to help him out. The Bonn Department of the Interior was also contacted. Bonn's efficiency proved to be truly amazing! More police raids took place in Germany! Only a few months later, the Department of the Interior in Bonn wrote to the Foreign Office in Bonn, which in turn had its lackeys stationed on-site in Toronto at the consulate and whom it now advised to please see to it that the incriminating material, which was even then being shipped to Canada as diplomatic papers, would be passed on to the Jewish leader in Toronto! It was that easy! And Bonn was that eager to cater to Jewish wishes directed against a German citizen living abroad, a man who had fought for decades to clear Germany's name! This is what went on behind the scenes in the Federal Republic of Germany!

The First Legal Victories

In winter 1982, Zündel surprisingly won his postal ban case before the Canadian Postal Tribunal. The mail, which had been held back, was now delivered to Zündel by the truckload. Most of the checks had expired. Much of the mail had been rifled and even stolen-by whom, remains a mystery to this day. Zündel suffered staggering financial losses. His publishing company, Samisdat, recovered only slowly, the ban had caused an 80% drop in income. Many supporters became disheartened and withdrew, frightened of the consequences of being linked to Zündel.

Perversely enough, Zündel never received a copy of the Postal Tribunal's verdict. Only after more than 12 years, he was finally granted the right to see his own verdict in this matter through the courts and Freedom of Information requests! He was not given a copy, however; rather, his lawyer had to copy it by hand, and type it into the computer she had brought along-right there in the Postal Administration Office! Why such elaborate secrecy? Today Zündel knows from other documents which he has gleaned from the government via the courts: the government was seized by panic because the Postal Tribunal, which had been impaneled by the government itself, told the Postal Minister, i.e., the government, clearly and unequivocally: Hands off these Holocaust issues! Zündel's work, the documents stated, involved “a conflict between two peoples, the Germans and the Jews.” The Jewish community, on the other hand, was already in possession of the decision one week after the verdict was handed down, and quoted it in the press! Equality before the law-Canadian style!

Shortly afterwards, attorney Jürgen Rieger also won total victory in the Stuttgart, Germany proceedings against Zündel for “inciting the people.” The state was ordered by the court to release Zündel's bank account and even to pay for Zündel's legal fees and court costs. Zündel heaved a sigh of relief, although the media are totally silent about his victory.

At the beginning of 1983, Zündel and his team, entirely free from legal restrictions once again, worked at full swing! Due to the revocation of his passport, Zündel could not yet leave Canada. Instead, he invited well-known Revisionists from all parts of the world to come to Canada to work with him there. Documentary videos were produced in Zündel's studios and lecture tours were arranged with these guests. Tens of thousands of press releases, brochures, audio- and videotapes on various topics were being sent by him around the world.

An American citizen of German-Polish extraction, Frank Walus, fell victim to the virulent “Nazi war criminals” hysteria, which was suddenly being stepped up in the U.S. Frank Walus came to Zündel in Toronto, seeking help, advice and support. Zündel immediately made a documentary film with him, arranged and widely publicized a press conference and organized lecture programs for Walus before friends. He also raised funds for Walus for appeal proceedings against the US 'Nazi hunters' and against Simon Wiesenthal, the man who was responsible for the wrongful persecution and the misery being inflicted on this quiet, gentle, innocent little man. With Zündel's help, advice and contacts, Walus was finally exonerated in full. As a result, new allies from the United States joined up with Zündel's and support his work.

The First Zündel Trial in Toronto

Without Zündel's knowledge, the Canadian state had conducted Canada-wide investigations against him for years at the behest of Simon Wiesenthal. On highest orders, fliers, press releases, tapes of radio broadcasts, and television appearances by Zündel had been collected.

Finally, in November 1983:, Sabina Citron, defeated in Ottawa before the Postal Tribunal and, by then, Zündel's well-known Jewish adversary, brought criminal charges against Zündel “for knowingly spreading false news”, under the Canadian Criminal Code's ancient Section 177, a law that dated from 12th century England.

Many centuries ago, England's aristocrats, including the King, intended to rid themselves of their critics by means of this paragraph. This ancient legal provision was now dusted off by the Jewish activist Citron and her attorneys and used against Zündel because he questioned the Holocaust.

Shortly before Christmas 1983, Zündel was duly dragged before a Canadian Criminal Court. The media were there to record the event. On his way to court he was met by dozens of demonstrators. He was knocked down, spat at, and beaten by thugs from the “Jewish Defense League”, the JDL. The media had a field day, with the entire booklet Did Six Million Really Die? prominently splashed on the nation's TV screens. Time and again, Canada saw nationwide headlines and broadcasts on the topic of “Freedom of Speech” and “the Zündel Holocaust Trial”. This would not last for long.

In early 1984, Zündel became the target of a wave of Jewish terrorist acts that shocked even the Toronto police. Every time there was a court date, Zündel and his attorneys had to run the veritable gauntlet. In plain view of the press, and under the watchful eye of the police, Zündel and his lawyer and friends were now being threatened, pushed, beaten, and spat on. Every day, he and his team had to fight their way into the courthouse.

Zündel went on a major media-wide offensive. He alerted the entire world to this scandalous state of affairs with fiery press releases and the distribution of hundreds of videos and thousands of audiotapes with these threats, providing audio-visual documentation of the violence and often death threats aimed at him by Jewish thugs and telephone terrorists, while the police stood by in the beginning and did nothing.

Press people from throughout the world began to approach Zündel for interviews. Each of Zündel's court appearances were now accompanied by massive media turnouts. Newscasts about his case on nightly TV were commonplace. Due to the daily violence-and for the first time ever!-Zündel organized his “yellow-helmeted bodyguards.” He himself wore a blue hard hat, so the cops could easily locate him in the crowd. This was a bold move on Zündel's part, since private “uniformed” guards are not permitted by law in Canada. These hard hats made him a political celebrity and somewhat of an easily recognizable folk hero. From England, France, Austria, America, and Argentina-from all parts of the world!-volunteers now flocked to Zündel's side to protect him from these Jewish terrorists! The police proved tolerant and let them wear their yellow helmets, glad that they could easily distinguish the disciplined Zündel team from the shrieking Jewish bandits. Time and again, Jewish thugs or violent demonstrators were now shown in the process of being arrested. Everywhere there was talk of Zündel's “media spectacles.” So crass was the difference between the “yellow hard hats” and their assailants that the Jewish thugs began to look like movie “extras” who were in Zündel's pay! Before the public's eyes, they turned into “the bad guys”-the so-called “Nazi” in the blue hard hat and his friends wearing yellow hard hats had turned into the “good guys”!

The Jewish forces were beside themselves. They now attacked television reporters verbally and publicly and soon with fists and clubs for showing Zündel in such a positive light in their nightly news reports

Meanwhile, the state moved in the heaviest legal “expert witness” guns it could muster, among them Dr. Raul Hilberg, the “Holocaust Pope”, who in the course of decades had put together several weighty tomes on the topic of “the extermination of the Jews in Europe”. The pro-Holocaust forces also summoned an 84-year-old Jew, Dr. John Fried from New York, who-much to the prosecution's horror-ended up testifying how he, as editor of the Nuremberg Trial court transcripts, had been in charge of deciding which of these transcripts would make it into print for posterity. He testified and showed how he had edited and selected prosecution-useful transcripts-and thrown everything that was detrimental to the Allie's case into the waste paper basket of history! Until then, it had been assumed by practically all historians that the dozens of volumes were the “complete” sets of those thick transcript volumes in the libraries of the world that issued from the Nuremberg Trials contained everything that had come to light in Nuremberg. It was not until the Zündel trial preliminaries in Toronto in 1984 that the world-and the astonished reporters, most of all-found out what had really taken place in Nuremberg!

As a consequence, to almost everyone's amazement and to the Jewish side's horror, the judge, who was of Ukrainian extraction, decided not to admit these court transcripts as evidence in this trial, since after all they were deemed only “excerpts”-selected fragments of testimony and documents. This decision shocked the Jewish leadership present in the courtroom so badly that the judge had to call for order several times. In a great hurry, a new judge for the main hearings was selected by the powers-that-be to replace the “uppity” Ukrainian judge!

Meanwhile, on Zündel's request, the Judge decided to have the public excluded from the proceedings. The media interpreted Zündel's wish for censorship of the trial as a sign of weakness. Throughout North America, reporters, radio and television commentators and public speakers now attacked Zündel for his alleged cowardice. They sensed disgrace and defeat in the offing for Zündel in the upcoming trial. They thought they were in for a spectacle. For this reason, the press concentrated heavily on the new trial. The intent was to show Zündel up for a fool and a loser. The level of media interest was astounding!

September 1984: Despite massive security measures, someone detonated the first bomb in Zündel's annex. His building and his neighborhood were shaken up by the explosion. Fortunately no people were injured. Political terrorism à la Beirut had now come to Toronto! Jewish circles contacted the media and claimed responsibility for the pipe bomb, stating brazenly that they had done it in order to scare Zündel and teach him a lesson. To this day, the Toronto police have never identified or arrested the perpetrators. With the explosion of the bomb, Zündel lost all insurance protection.

As a result of the media hype, Zündel lost most customers of his graphics studio. The once flourishing business lost account after account. At the beginning of 1985, Zündel's business was ruined; only a few smaller clients and personal friends remained faithful to him. This proved to be a mixed blessing: Zündel could now devote his undivided energy and all his attention to the preparations for his First Great Holocaust Trial. Soon, Zündel's house serves as a university of forbidden thoughts!

On January 7, 1985, the First Great Holocaust Trial began. This trial, lasting 39 court days, was a worldwide media sensation. All of Canada's television stations and most of the radio stations reported through well-known reporters or columnists almost every day, prominently and in detail, about the events in court.

Zündel now engaged in “public education” on a grand scale, via Canada's media, far above and beyond the courtroom scene-in the country's living rooms, offices, and universities. By default, Sabina Citron's vengeance had caused a vivid sprouting of Holocaust Revisionism. Shock about this public relations disaster followed tangible panic among the Jewish circles. They had not counted on this massive free publicity for Zündel's cause!

The Zündel media juggernaut rolled on unstoppable und uninterruptedly. Zündel's good-looking and fearless attorney, Doug Christie, dominated the court. Non-stop, Zündel witness testimony appeared in newspaper headlines and the evening news broadcasts. By contrast, the government's witnesses showed themselves to be weak and without much credibility, even detrimental to the entire traditional Holocaust story. Day by day, the Crown attorney became ever more nervous, lost 12 pounds and was getting quite haggard! Quite literally, the Holocaust was melting before the public's incredulous eyes!

By contrast, the atmosphere inside the courtroom became nasty and then downright toxic. The Judge, a visibly hostile man named Locke, intervened ever more spitefully and frequently in the proceedings against Zündel, turned red in the face with anger, and even threatened to charge Christie himself for lack of respect for the Court because Christie questioned some of the judge's obviously biased rulings. There were scenes of abuse by Jewish spectators against Zündel's friends. Even his collaborators and witnesses were threatened. The police stepped in, time and again, to separate the fighting parties. Outside, not far from the courthouse, one of the translators was punched in the face by some thugs. He appeared, dripping blood, in the courtroom.

On March 25, 1985, after the jury returned its guilty verdict, the judge sentenced Zündel to 15 months' imprisonment and three years on probation. During this time he would be forbidden to say, write or show anything about the Holocaust in public.

The cold steel handcuffs closed about his wrists even while he was still in the courtroom. That very same day, he sat, convicted of thought crimes for the first time in his life, in a lonely, dank and dark prison cell in Canada, far from home. He had dared what no one dared before him. He had confronted the powerful Jewish lobby with a Holocaust question that simply demanded an answer: Did six million really die? Now it was time to pay the price. Prison, ridicule, and relentless defamation in the media were that price.

Attempts of Deportation

On April 12, 1985, the Canadian Department of Citizenship and Immigration ordered a “deportation inquiry.” The inquiry starts on April 29, 1985. Zündel, by then wise to the political use of media props, had painted his face black so as to demonstrate that if he were a black immigrant, he would perhaps be able to enjoy all his rights or even preferential treatment. He pointedly informed the press that as a member of the much-vilified white German minority, he was not granted these advantages. The Immigration judge took precisely 11 minutes to reach his verdict about Zündel: Zündel had to be deported as an “Undesirable” without delay, against which Zündel filed an appeal that same day

On January 23, 1987, the Appeal Court decided in favor of Zündel due to grave procedural errors. As usual during such court processes, Zündel was in jail again while this happened, where he was detained for the weekend out of sheer bureaucratic chicanery, despite his victory. The excuse he was given by prison authorities was that the judge's decision came too late in the day-there were no prison officials available during the weekend to release him!

On Monday morning, Canada's foremost representatives of the press awaited Zündel at the jail's exit in an almost festive atmosphere. Zündel held a jail gate press conference and settled the score with his opponents-publicly before the press! Once again, the fickle reporters treated him like a folk hero. There was enormous public interest in the reasons for the verdict, and articles and editorials, some even in favor of Zündel, swept the country.

Shortly thereafter, however, the state was taking the Zündel case right to the highest Canadian court, the Supreme Court in Ottawa, in an attempt to overturn the appeal. This failed, however, and subsequently the first attempt to have Zündel deported failed as well.

The Second Zündel Trial in Toronto

The second Zündel trial was scheduled for early 1988. Hence, in late 1987, Zündel doubled and tripled his media outreach with press releases, all of which indicated the content and substance of the coming Holocaust Trial. Again, he invited the world media to participate in the trial in Toronto. Even before the trial began, there was a vigorous debate in the Canadian press as to how best to stem the tide of the “Zündel-phenomenon”. As early as February 11, 1987, Lorrie Goldstein, a Jewish columnist with the Toronto Sun, had snidely opined that the trial ought to be reported “on page 90, hidden among the soap ads.” On June 8, 1987, the Calgary Herald, the largest daily newspaper of Calgary, Alberta, reported:

The Globe and Mail, Canada's best-known newspaper, editorialized on August 26, 1987 that a decision ought to be reached “in the public interest” to place “extra restrictions” on the trial reports.

One of the best-known senior reporters in Canada, George Bain, later reported in Maclean's Magazine of May 23, 1988:

Only Ian Urquhart of the Toronto Star later admitted openly that a delegation of Jewish leaders had informed him of the wishes of the Jewish community that Zündel's “hate-filled news and views ought not to receive any publicity.”

On January 18, 1988, the 117^th anniversary of the founding of the Second German Reich, the Second Great Holocaust Trial began against the German Ernst Zündel in Canada. Media attention is huge.

All the experiences gained in the 1985 trial now bore fruit. He and his team, the witnesses, attorneys, translators etc., were working round the clock. Everything ran like a well-oiled machine.

The editors of the Toronto Star had promised the Jewish delegation of leaders that the paper would print its Zündel court-reports always on the same place and page inside the newspaper, and that it would take the personal approval of one of the highest bosses of Toronto's largest daily to print an account of the Zündel trial elsewhere in the paper, much less on the front page. Ironically, the bottom line of this decision was that the 66 articles printed in the Toronto Star about the 1988 Zündel Trial appeared on the same page and at the same place every day, easy for all the readers to find! It was like having a “Zündel column” in Canada's largest circulation newspaper. Once again Jewish censors had shot themselves in the foot!

The Jewish Defense League and its thugs were of course on duty again on the first court day of 1988, attacking Zündel's party, just as they had done during the 1985 Zündel Trial. Zündel's bodyguard was numerically stronger this time and soon had the situation under control. Again, as they had done before, they steadily fought their way through to the entrance of the courthouse. The Toronto Police were also better prepared, and after only a few minutes the ringleaders of the Jewish thugs were handcuffed and lying face-down in the slush and snow on the sidewalk, while Toronto policemen knelt on them and held them down, waiting for the paddy wagons to haul them off to jail.

The media couldn't have asked for anything better! Their cameras clicked and whirred, and the none-too-pretty picture of the Jewish terrorists lying handcuffed on the ground soon appeared on TV screens and newspaper front pages throughout the country. Prompt sentencing of the thugs was the result-which meant safety for Zündel and his friends on their way to the court, and orderly legal proceedings.

In the courtroom itself, Judge Thomas immediately dove for cover and hid behind the principle of “judicial notice”, which is a rarely used concept in Canadian court tradition-but which occurs routinely in Revisionist trials in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. “Judicial notice” is a legal term and indicates that certain matters are not open to doubt-such as, for example, that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, or that night follows day. This was to be the guiding principle pertaining to the “Holocaust” topic for this trial!

To apply such a legal principle in such a serious and controversial historical court case in Canada, where so many issues were disputed, violated the Anglo-Saxon tradition of freedom of speech and opinions and civil rights, even the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In fact, it was unheard-of! Attorney Doug Christie had to fight with the judge over every word and every sentence. In the end, he was able to tone down the judge's “judicial notice of the Holocaust” ruling-unfortunately, he could not prevent it entirely. In the Second Great Holocaust Trial, Judge Thomas coyly refused to talk about the “Six million”!

This was important, because it meant that Zündel would not be allowed to defend himself with all the facts and documents at his disposal. The Judge forbade it. The only question that remained was whether Zündel was “too dumb to understand the self-evident”, or whether he acted “with malicious intent against the Jews” when he dared to raise his questions about the “Holocaust”!

Thus, Zündel stood before the jury like one who was not quite “normal”, or “right in the head”-for according to the Judge's decree, was it not crystal clear that a “Holocaust” had happened and that any normal person must be able to grasp that? After all, the “self-evident” nature of the Holocaust could be shown and proven with hundreds of books written by eye witnesses, Holocaust survivors and historians whose material was freely available in any library!

Lawyer Christie told Zündel that under these conditions, and given Judge Thomas's “judicial notice”, he could not possibly win the case for his client. He advised Zündel to restrict his defense to a minimum, not to waste his time, and to save the money required for the enormous costs entailed in the defense of a losing proposition. Christie kept beseeching Zündel:

Zündel requested time to think it over. A few days later he called his inner circle team together, outlined the situation and told them:

The media pressure and the threats of violence against Zündel diminished markedly after the judge has taken “judicial notice” of the Holocaust. The uniformed policemen, who to date had accompanied Zündel's every step, even in the courthouse and on his way to the washroom, now disappeared. Clearly even the uppermost echelons in the Police Department knew what a favor had been handed the Holocaust Lobby! There was an air of anticlimax in the halls of justice. The Holocaust Lobby triumphed openly, as though the ruling of “judicial notice” had already guaranteed forever the lie's victory over truth.

Zündel and his attorney Christie took hours-long walks through the snowy parks near the Zündel-House and discussed in detail the possibilities that were still open to them. Next on the discussion agenda were the specialists, witnesses and court experts who had come from all parts of the world to help. Zündel sounded out their attitudes, and in the end he himself set the course for the trial: in spite of his attorneys' and some of his foremost advisors' recommendations, he would see the trial through as planned-in-depth and as though no “judicial notice” ruling had occurred.

He declared that it would be attorney Christie's task to block, to undermine, to by-pass, to ignore the judge's “judicial notice”, to hollow it out and to cut it down to size, bit by bit via “salami tactic” with a kind of “policy of small steps”, until in the end the Zündel Team would be able to demolish or at least neutralize and invalidate the government's evidence. The witnesses for the defense would attempt to have all their documents submitted and discussed in court, regardless of the outcome. In this way the Zündel Team would engage in judicial positional warfare, digging down into the subject matter in a kind of judicial trench warfare-much like many battles were fought in the First and often in the Second World War on the battlefields of Europe!

This turned out to be a tough decision! The Zündel-House became a Command Bunker extraordinaire, from where the court battle was planned and prepared with many helpers. Inside the courtroom, day in, day out, Zündel's team of lawyers, witnesses and advisors now revised and rewrote Germany's recent history-“judicial notice” or no “judicial notice”! The Crown attorney and the Judge could hardly believe their eyes and ears, clearly frustrated by the happenings. Slice by slice and day by day, the old and false Hollywood fake history version of the Holocaust version was dissected, scrutinized, debunked!

The Leuchter Report

In the midst of the legal proceedings, electrifying news hits the Zündel-House much like a lightning bolt! The warden of one of the largest American prisons, Bill Armontrout, who was to serve as Zündel-witness and to testify about the involved technical procedures in American gassings of felons sentenced to death, suggested an expert, Fred Leuchter from Boston, as witness for the defense in questions pertaining to gas chambers! Fred Leuchter, he said almost in passing-not knowing that history would be forever changed-was just the right man. He was currently the only expert and consultant in the entire United States on matters of execution equipment, including electric chairs and gas chambers! Armontrout even had the address and telephone number of this potential expert witness on hand!

What a sensation! The legal team had not even known that such an expert still existed! They had been under the impression that most had retired or died!

Zündel reacted with lightning speed, even though he was already in the midst of the actual trial proceedings. Without hesitation he sent his foremost adviser, Professor Robert Faurisson, to Boston to check Leuchter out thoroughly.

It turned out that Leuchter believed in the Holocaust and that he did not doubt the gas chambers, insofar as he had heard about them. However, everything else about him indicated that here was a man who knew what he was doing, that he understood his job, and that he was honest and professionally ethical.

Dr. Faurisson flew back to Toronto to report to Zündel. Leuchter was asked to come to Toronto himself to meet with Doug Christie and speak with the other experts and to analyze and to familiarize himself with the documents and testimony of both sides, especially Dr. Raul Hilberg's trial transcripts of the 1985 trial and the statements in his books. The models of Auschwitz and Birkenau, which the Zündel team had constructed to scale from German blueprints discovered by Dr. Faurisson at the Auschwitz archives were also shown and explained to him.

Zündel asked Leuchter for a cost estimate for his expert report and testimony. The price was steep; but the testimony was extremely important. Now what to do? From where was the extra money for Leuchter's report to come? Zündel examined bank statements and current income from donations. He compared the constantly accruing expenses and considered tapping his strategic financial reserve. He sounded out his supporters near and far to see whether any extra donations might be obtained.

Meanwhile, Leuchter flew back to Boston. Time was of the essence, since the trial was already approaching half time. Zündel spent entire nights on the telephone and explained the situation to donors both large and small. In the end, some larger contributions from several elderly German women and men became the deciding factor in this historically so exceedingly important move.

At that point, Zündel made a bold decision. Leuchter would not merely testify. He would go after evidence first-hand! Together with a small, quickly-assembled group consisting of a translator for Leuchter, his wife who would double as typist and secretary, a draftsman and a video- and cameraman, it was decided that the Leuchter team would fly to Auschwitz and Majdanek in what was then still Communist Poland. He would examine and measure the facilities and draw up precise technical building and floor plans. Working meticulously to prevent contamination, he would take material samples, wrap them up carefully, and smuggle them back to the United States, where a well-known laboratory would examine and analyze them for their Zyklon B content. This dramatic expedition would be carried out clandestinely while the trial still continued in Toronto!

At the Zündel-House it felt like at General Staff Headquarters during wartime! People were busy planning, testing, measuring, weighing and packing. Work plans were drawn up. Visas, passports and plane tickets were arranged in a great hurry. And then the word was: “Silence!”

The Zündel-Leuchter-Holocaust-Expedition left North America and Europe at different times and via different airports. Friendly Poles awaited them, to be of assistance, at the other end. Everything went off without a hitch.

The rest is Revisionist history! Leuchter's investigation was first rate pioneering work. Today millions of people around the world already know that the forensic evidence of Leuchter's report and Professor Roth's Auschwitz sample analysis have acquitted Germany of the crime of having carried out or at least attempted the genocide of the Jews by means of “gas chambers.”

On April 20, 1988, 99 years after the birth of a certain man, Zündel introduced the witness Leuchter and his report to the Court in Toronto. Panic! Horror! The faces of the Jewish representatives showed total disbelief! The Judge and Crown attorney were speechless at this development! The Judge ordered a lengthy break to recover his composure. Then the jury members were sent from the courtroom.

In their absence, and under orders of strict secrecy and a ban on publication for the media, negotiations were conducted to determine what the extremely important “Witness Leuchter” could or could not testify to, and what the Court would graciously “accept” and allow as evidence to be put to the jury!

What happened next was a legal disgrace! Leuchter was forbidden to say anything about his findings in the presence of the jury! The Crown and the Judge wanted to rescue what could still be rescued, and felt that they would be able to embarrass the defense by demanding the personal appearance, for cross-examination, of the expert chemist who had performed the analysis in the American laboratory-the analysis which would consign the claim of Jewish mass murders by Zyklon B gas to the dust heap of history. This decision to get the chemist could indeed prove dangerous to the defense, since the man in question worked thousands of kilometers away in the United States. No one could force him to fly to Toronto to testify. It was truly touch and go! Zündel was on the phone for hours! But in the end, late at night, everything was arranged! Professor Dr. Roth, for ten years professor for chemistry at the famous Cornell University in the United States, would testify personally the very next day! Of course he demanded a horrendous fee of US$ 300.00 per hour from the instant he left his house until the moment he returned. These funds, too, were somehow raised by Zündel.

The next morning in court, Christie stood up and calmly informed the judge that he intended to call as his next witness the chemistry expert, Dr. Roth, who had, in an American laboratory, analyzed Leuchter's brick sludge and concrete samples from Auschwitz! The Judge and Crown attorney were flabbergasted! Again, they had shot themselves in the foot!

The next day, April 22, 1988, David Irving, the famous British historian and best-selling author of over 30 books on World War II, who until then had also believed in the Holocaust, took the stand in Toronto as the last witness for the Zündel defense. To the amazement and shock of all present, Irving publicly revised his previous views on the gas chambers and the Holocaust! He called the Leuchter report a “shattering” document. Looking over at Zündel in the dock, he said that it was “a stroke of genius” on the part of the defense to have commissioned these first ever forensic investigations of Auschwitz!

Leuchter's and Irving's testimony were the culmination of the 1988 trial. But they were unfortunately also the beginning of massive persecution that both Leuchter and Irving were subjected to ever since.

On May 11, 1988, Zündel was found “guilty” by Judge Thomas and the jury as predicted. “Judicial notice” made no other verdict possible. The jury had no choice. Night follows day. Certain “facts” may not be called into question, all the forensic evidence notwithstanding-not even at the end of the twentieth century! Remember Galileo! In a hate-laced, vicious judgment, Judge Thomas sentenced Zündel to nine months imprisonment without parole. Again, Zündel was led off in handcuffs straight to Toronto's Don Jail.

However, thanks to generous donations, Zündel was soon released on cash bail. The gag order, stricter this time than in 1985, was re-imposed. Zündel was not allowed to leave downtown Toronto. He was ordered to report twice a week to the police and a parole officer in the inner city, along with dope pushers and pimps. The political thumbscrews were being re-applied. The media were given carte blanche for months and even years to come. Venom, filth and lies were dumped on Zündel by the bucketful. He could not answer back. His reputation was severely damaged. It was media sharks in a feeding frenzy all over again. Now he was a disreputable, convicted “Nazi” whom the media, the politicians and the mob could attack and vilify with impunity at every opportunity. He is fair game-as were once Hutten, Hus, and Luther!

On the very day of the “guilty” verdict, Zündel's attorneys registered their “leave for appeal” with the court, since they had preparing it already in advance in wise expectation of the coming verdict.

During the first week of May, however, just prior to his conviction, Zündel had mailed more than 20,000 brochures that bore the title Es ist vollbracht (“It is done!”) to Germany. In it, he had summarized the substance of the Second Great Holocaust Trial. Copies were sent to all German Members of Parliament, Members of the Landtag, the German press, and the Federal German elite per se. This would keep Germany's elite from pleading ignorance of the historical truth and of Leuchter's findings. No one would be permitted to say at some later date they had been uninformed of sensational findings and facts unearthed in this second Zündel trial. The list of recipients of this brochure is still held in the Zündel archives. “There shall be no excuse!” The truth and the facts are now known to every member of the German vassal state!

German Defeat, Canadian Victory…

September 18-22, 1989: The Ontario Appeals Court heard Zündel's case. The Judges were Brooke, Norden and Galligan. The atmosphere was charged with clearly visible disdain and dislike-quite the opposite of the first appeal proceedings where Justice Howland had still presided. The media vilification campaign had been effective. This time the judges were clearly opposed to Zündel. Zündel could anticipate the outcome of this second appeal trial in advance. That very week in France, Dr. Faurisson, Europe's most noted Revisionist, was nearly beaten to death by unknown assailants.

Early 1990: The Ontario Appeals Court decided against Zündel, just as he had expected. Subsequently, Zündel appealed to the highest court in Canada to hear his case. In the meantime, Zündel helped to organize the “Leuchter Congress” in Munich with the help of German friends during the fall and winter months of 1990-1991. The best-known Revisionists in the world would meet at this “Congress of Alternative Historians” in Munich-at least that was the plan.

In early 1991, however, the County Court Munich issued an arrest warrant against Zündel relating to an old charge of “inciting the people”, because a person or persons, unknown to Zündel, had conveniently and anonymously mailed edited Zündel videotapes, “enriched” with European news programs and footage, to addresses in Germany. Unaware that this had happened, Zündel flew to Germany to participate in the preparations for the planned “Leuchter Congress” and to film interviews with some of the attendees. He did not know of the arrest warrant, and flew straight into the arms of disaster.

The Leuchter Congress-first permitted, then forbidden, then permitted again by authorities in Germany-was forbidden for good again in the end. The meeting hall owners canceled the agreement. DM 6,000 in rent for the German museum was gone. Legal bills were staggering. Harassment of this kind was becoming more frequent in Germany. These acts of censorship were permitted there by law. Repression ruled ever more brazenly.

On March 21, 1991, Zündel was arrested in Munich during an interview break with the well-known German book author Ingrid Weckert and thrown in jail. He was soon convicted in absentia-meaning, while he was still imprisoned in Munich!-for newsletters, videos, a revisionist publications about The Diary of Anne Frank and, on the whole, “for denigrating the memory of persons deceased”, meaning for questioning the Holocaust. The fine was enormous: DM 30,600.00 (some $15,000)!

In early November 1991, the second Zündel trial in Germany began. These proceedings, too, turned out to be a joke. Not one of the witnesses who had been admitted by the court in Canada was permitted to testify in Germany. Noted experts such as Leuchter or Faurisson, expressly qualified by a Canadian court in his Toronto trials, were forbidden to testify-no expert witness, not a single exonerating document was admitted in Munich! On December 22, 1991, Zündel was once again convicted, but the fine was reduced to DM 14,600.00.

Back in Canada, Zündel was surprised by an unexpected testamentary bequest, which enabled him suddenly to buy commercial radio or even television airtime in the regular media in the United States. He quietly produced on-air commercials and new brochures in his publishing house, as well as a 567-page book about the Second Great Holocaust Trial in 1988, compiled by one of his attorneys, in readiness for the day when his gag order would no longer be an impediment, either through the start of his incarceration or his victory before the Supreme Court, when the gag order would cease to be in force. He intended to launch this book on the market immediately-in jail, or free!

In various parts of the world, other books were being written and published about Zündel's work and sacrifices. Friends composed hundreds of thousands of fliers and small brochures in many countries, from Brazil to Australia, discussing the Leuchter Report. Despite the Canadian gag order, Zündel's revisionist seeds began to bear fruit in even the most remote corners of the globe. The “Revised Holocaust” genie was out of the bottle!

In revisionist history, the Leuchter Report was a milestone. It rapidly expanded into a “Total Truth Campaign”. The Zündel case and the Leuchter Report were now being discussed everywhere and served as the springboard for debates. The Leuchter Report became the foundation for further investigations of Auschwitz by the well-qualified and courageous young German chemist, Germar Rudolf, and the distinguished Austrian engineer, Walter Lüftl.

David Irving, the British historian, also pushed the Holocaust debate forward in worldwide speaking tours. He even published a special English edition of the Leuchter Report, with his own foreword and color photos, which caused a sensation, and sent it to all the members of the House of Lords, as well as to all chemistry professors in England.

This move marked the start of David Irving's own suffering. He was arrested in Canada, convicted, and expelled from the country. He was thrown out of Rome and banned from Australia and New Zealand. He was forbidden to enter South Africa. In Germany, he was convicted and thereby criminalized, with grave consequences for his career as an author and for his personal life.

In summer 1992, the miracle happened! In a 4-3 decision the Supreme Court of Canada decided in favor of Zündel-after nine years of litigation! The sensation was complete! Briefly, Zündel's star shone brightly on the firmament of history. Reporters and commentators for the television networks-everyone crowded round him.

Repeatedly, Zündel reached out to his political opponents, pleading: “Let us reason together!” His conciliatory offers of dialogue with these Jewish circles were turned down coldly and arrogantly. There was no interest in any communication with the tenacious champion of the German cause.

Publicity Offensive

Now that the gag order was gone, Zündel's information outreach rolled on inexorably for weeks and months on end. The passing of two elderly Zündel supporters had resulted in unexpected extra funds in the form of testamentary bequests. Zündel used the funds to buy more airtime with American radio and TV stations and kept on broadcasting state-of-the-art Revisionism across America and Canada. He also paid for television time on U.S. satellites. His programs were now on the air from Mexico to the North Pole and the Caribbean, broadcast all across Canada, the United States and right across the ocean to Hawaii. Salaries, printing and postage expenses keep emptying the coffers, but it was vital now to break new ground for truth.

The Holocaust Lobby found itself on the defensive and was changing its tactics accordingly. On all sides it exerted economic pressure and indirect emotional and sometimes financial terrorism on the broadcasters, stations and satellite firms that ran Zündel's programs. It met with limited success. In many cases, intimidation worked. Some broadcasters canceled Zündel's contracts. Some satellite owners drew back. One radio station burned down after it announced it would carry Zündel broadcasts. Time and again Zündel sought and found new offers. His information broadcasts and videos seemed to be everywhere all at once-from Los Angeles, Detroit, Houston and Chicago right up to Anchorage. All the hard, dedicated work behind the scenes by his volunteers and staff, in between the trials, was now paying off. The Zündel Truth Campaign was on a roll, and nothing seemed to stop it!

End of 1993, after a 30-year wait, Zündel re-applied for Canadian citizenship for the second time. Meanwhile, Zündel had recovered his right to a German passport from the German Federal Administrative Court, and now he could travel again. He flew to Spain, England, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Poland. In Auschwitz he made a sensational video with the young Jewish Revisionist David Cole, a highly intelligent budding filmmaker. This video disgraced the Holocaust Lobby where it hurt them the most, because in it, this young Jew, yarmulke and all, showed and explained to Zündel, the German, and the world, via film, all the things about Auschwitz that had been faked, reconstructed and fabricated by the Polish Communists in order to deceive the gullible![1]

Since summer 1994, Zündel could be heard at his “Voice of Freedom” program on worldwide short-wave radio, and throughout America on short wave and the AM band. Six Canadian provinces and 18 American states were receiving Zündel's programs via AM radio. For months, the Holocaust Lobby resorted to special “intervention commandos” which showed up as delegations everywhere Zündel broadcast from, to exert pressure on stations broadcasting Zündel-programs-sometimes to success, often in vain! Undeterred, the Zündel media avalanche rolled on!

In 1994, Zündel addressed the annual conference of The Institute for Historical Review, summarizing the decades-long, often arduous path of Revisionism. At this conference, he met Dr. Ingrid Rimland, a California resident and award-winning writer of German ethnic descent.

Starting in 1995, Zündel produced a great quantity of TV documentaries, which were broadcasted by various U.S. stations. In October 1996, for the first time ever, Zündel broadcasted into Germany-from Europe via Radio Moscow, based in Königsberg, now called Kaliningrad. It was an ironic twist of fate that Zündel's German-language “Stimme der Freiheit” (Voice of Freedom) programs were also broadcast into Russia by this same station from this ancient German city.

Revisionism on the Internet

In winter of 1994/95, Zündel took the first steps into cyberspace with the help of American friends. This again unleashed a worldwide avalanche of protest. The first Internet Provider for the Voice of Freedom content was put under massive pressure and canceled the account after only a few months. Eventually, in the summer of 1995, Ingrid Rimland found another Provider, Web Communications in Santa Cruz, California, one of America's and perhaps the world's largest Internet providers with 1,300 customers.

In the meantime, the Revisionist website on the Internet, known as the www.Zundelsite.org, was becoming more sophisticated through the work of Dr. Ingrid Rimland, its originator, designer, owner, and webmaster. After much wrangling and correspondence back and forth, primarily between Ingrid Rimland and one Jamie McCarthy, webmaster of a traditional Holocaust website called “Nizkor”-hostile to Revisionism and operated and financed mostly by tax deductible donations from Jewish donors-McCarthy pressed for a worldwide electronic debate (later he backpedaled and called it a “rebuttal”) about the Holocaust.

Both parties agreed that both sides would make an honest effort and coordinate this electronic confrontation in order to clear up misunderstandings about the Holocaust and to focus on historical truth-whatever the facts in the case! In two faxed letters of January 5 and 8, 1996, Zündel informed the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles that this electronic debate would take place and invited them to be a part. Within 48 hours the Simon Wiesenthal Centre wrote to 2,000 University Presidents and Internet Service Providers, calling for “self-censorship” by ISPs against the “Revisionists”.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center's attempts at censorship jolted the American media. In the first weeks of January 1996, all hell broke loose on the Internet and in cyberspace. Reporters, television crews, radio shows and computer magazines focused on the Zundelsite. Even the New York Times ran an article on January 10. Within a few days, the news of the impending electronic debate whipped up such waves of frenzy and panic that Deutsche Telekom, the recently privatized German communications outfit, actually tried to block reception of all 1,300 American websites of the Zundelsite Internet provider, Web Communications, just to prevent access to the Zundelsite by Germans!

The numbers of visitors to the Zundelsite grew astronomically. Electronic Internet traffic to the Zundelsite became so snarled that the hosting company had to install a “governor”, a sort of electronic emergency brake.

There had never been anything like it: an electronic World War was raging in cyberspace, with freedom-of-speech fighters on one side and the dark forces of the Holocaust censors on the other! Media folks scrambled and screamed for interviews. Within days, the Zundelsite became the fulcrum for a global anti-censorship movement.

Zundel doing one of his T.V. shows in Moscow in 1994

Damaged inventory after the arson against the Zündel House in 1995

Students at various American universities and also in other countries all the way to Australia for the first time decorated their Web pages with the blue ribbon of freedom, defying the censorship of the Holocaust Lobby! More than a dozen individuals-total strangers all over the planet, mostly students-rushed in to save the Zundelsite from the rabid rabbis of the Simon Wiesenthal Center! Computer buffs who understood the technical side of this “War of the Blue Ribbons” started to copy the Revisionist content of the Zundelsite and mirrored it on their own computers or that of their universities!

Like a miracle, the Zundelsite doubled, tripled, quadrupled! A website was cloning itself! On air!

Within days, mirror sites spontaneously sprang up to undermine the German government's attempt at censorship. All this was taking place in California, where the Zundelsite was located in a small tourist town by the Pacific Ocean and was observed, uploaded and managed from San Diego. Ingrid Rimland would later comment that it felt as though she was sitting at the controls of an electronic jumbo jet-with no idea what kept it in the air!

In the third week of February the German government threw up its hands in frustration, and the world press declared: “Zündel victorious in Internet battle!”[2]

On Mai 21, 1998, the Discovery Channel shows a documentary about the Zundelsite at its best time. Visitor numbers to the Zundesite skyrocketed once more.

Who Lacks Arguments Will Resort to Violence

In spring of 1995, the opposition turned to the mob. For months the Zündel-House was the target of malicious, violent multicultural demonstrations, often 2,000 to 3,000 strong. Posters repeatedly showed up by the thousands throughout Toronto in that period, urging violence against Zündel. These posters contained explicit instructions as to how to make Molotov cocktails to burn the Zündel-House down. There were also posters bearing death threats, showing Zündel in the cross hairs of a rifle, giving his full address, photo, a map to the Zündel-House etc. Security measures in and around the Zündel-House were stepped up one more time as a precaution.

On April 4, 1995, an “Anti-Fascist Militia” organization sent Zündel an anonymous threat with a razor blade and a mousetrap, culminating in a bomb threat.

On May 7, 1995, shortly before 5 o'clock in the morning, an unknown arsonist threw a napalm-like fluid against the Zündel-House and lit a match. The building was soon engulfed in flames. At that time, Zündel was on a speaking tour at the other and of the country, so he saw the fire on the TV news. The fire marshal estimated the loss at $400,000. Zündel's furniture, equipment, and archival material was almost completely destroyed

During the week of May 20, 1995, Zündel received a well taped up “book parcel” in the mail. The house still reeked of fire and smoke and the wrecked roof was leaking through countless huge gaps. Therefore Zündel put the mysterious parcel aside and warned his employees and comrades not to open it; he would take care of it himself as soon as he had time. He sensed that something was wrong.

The next Saturday, he took this parcel, shook it gingerly, photographed everything-the sender's return address, the stamps, etc.-and then prepared to open it outside. By a lucky coincidence a friend called, telling a weekend staffer, when asked if he had ever heard of this return address, that it was fake, that he had used that address for his political group two years earlier.

Now Zündel knew that, in all likelihood, the parcel contained a bomb. He placed the parcel in his car's trunk on a bag of birdseed to make sure that it would have a smooth ride, and drove it personally to the police station. The police bomb squad x-rayed the parcel and indeed discovered a powerful bomb that would have killed everyone in a 90-yard radius, had it exploded! Later in the day, a special unit of the police detonated the bomb harmlessly by remote control in a quarry near Toronto. Television crews were present to film the event. Zündel watched it on the evening news.

Thanks to some larger donations, Zündel's house was repaired quickly and equipped with new furniture.

Legal Harassment

On August 5, 1995, the Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration informed Zündel that the Canadian secret service had classified him a “security risk” to Canada! Thus, Zündel's application for Canadian Citizenship was in serious jeopardy, but Zündel decided to challenge this classification legally. A bit more than a year later, the Canadian government lost this court case, but won the appeal at the Supreme Court on April 30, 1998.

Early 1996, Sabina Citron filed another criminal complaint against Ernst Zündel for “defamation of the Jews,” but the case was thrown out by the court for lack of evidence. A few months later, Citron sued Zündel civilly, this time for “slander” and “damages” to the tune of $3.5 million! For his part, Zündel sued his Jewish persecutor to pay him $8 million for her malicious prosecution and for vilifying him.

As a reaction to this, Sabina Citron came up with yet another persecution wrinkle. She brought a complaint against Zündel before the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Not to be far behind, the Toronto Mayor's Committee on Community and Race Relations likewise brought a complaint against Zündel before the same Human Rights organization.

What followed was an almost four-years lasting legal trench-warfare, during which the Canadian authorities applied methods which can only be compared with the methods used during the infamous Stalinist show trials. This was possible because so so-called Human Rights Commissions in Canada are not bound by procedural rules, but can define their own rules and apply to the disadvantage of the defendant.[3]

The arrested Ernst Zündel at his arrival in Toronto, Feb. 19, 2003

On May 25, 1998 the Tribunal issued its by now famous, or infamous, ruling by proclaiming that “Truth is not a defense!” Hence, in these tribunals the truth is irrelevant! The only thing that counts are the feelings of the so-called “victims.” Shortly thereafter, in an unanimous decision, the Canadian Parliament banned Zündel from the entire precincts of Parliament! During June of 1998, this banning is one major topic in all Canadian media.

C-PAC, the Canadian Parliamentary Channel, filmed and broadcast the entire Zündel press conference in full on June 6, 1998. On June 8, Canada's Globe and Mail and the Ottawa Citizen wrote strong-worded editorials on Zündel's ban from Parliament, excoriating the Human Rights industry as a weapon of political interests. On June 15, 1998, the Canadian news magazine MacLeans and the London Free Press demanded the dissolution of the Human Rights Commissions.

On August 2, 1998, The New York Times (p. 18) published a remarkably fair and objective article about the Zundelsite and the Toronto Tribunal hearings, which was syndicated in dozens of large U.S. newspapers: As a result, the visitor count to the Zundelsite shot up to 40,000 documents accessed within 24 hours and remained heavy for weeks.

Early 1999, Zündel's lawyer Doug Christie, too, was banned from the press room located in the Parliament buildings-his “crime” was merely being Zündel's lawyer! The Christie ban made headlines across Canada. He was repeatedly interviewed by major media.

In March 1999, Zündel managed to have a hearing about the legality of the Human Rights Tribunals, but one by one, he lost not only this case but all the others as well.

The Last Stronghold of Freedom—End of the Line

Early 2000, Ernst Zündel married the U.S. citizen Ingrid Rimland and immigrated to the United States. Due to his marriage to a U.S. citizen, he applies for permanent legal residence. The couple bought a house in a valley of the Tennessee Appalachian Mountains and retreated almost completely from any revisionist work. Only Ingrid Rimland continued to send out her daily email newsletters to a restricted number of subscribers. The proceedings for legal residence were started properly, but some communication problems apparently evolved between Zündel and his immigration lawyer. As a result of this, Ernst Zündel missed a scheduled hearing at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in spring 2001. Since neither Ernst Zündel nor his lawyer followed up with the U.S. authorities in this matter, the U.S. fauthorities decided some two years later that Ernst Zündel had abandoned his application for permanent legal residence, that he had massively overstayed his visitor visa waiver which he had used to enter the USA, and that he would be deported. Hence, on February 5, 2003, Ernst Zündel was arrested and taken into custody. On February 17, the U.S. authorities tried to deport him to Canada without having informed the Canadian authorities, but the Canadians refused to accept him back. Thus, Ernst Zündel had to stay temporarily in the Batavia Federal Detention Facility near Buffalo for two days until the U.S. and the Canadian authorities agreed upon the proceedings. After that, Zündel was finally deported to Canada, where he is kept in custody in a high security prison close to Toronto.

Since Ernst Zündel has lived outside of Canada for more than three years, his permanent legal residence in Canada has expired, so that only one reason can prevent him from getting immediately deport to his country of citizenship Germany: As soon as he crossed the border to Canada, Ernst Zündel applied for political asylum in Canada.[4] Meanwhile, the German government has requested Zündel's extradition,[5] and the Canadian government has assigned its “top Nazi hunter” to prosecute Zündel.[6] Statements by the Canadian Immigration authorities indicate that Ernst Zündel is viewed as a crystallization point for right-wing extremist „hate propagandists” and violent criminals, due to which he is considered to be a danger for Canada's security and will be deported under any circumstances.[7]

Notes

The original Internet article has been slightly abridged, revised, and updated for this printed version. We apologize for the small size of the pictures reproduced in this article. We could have asked Mrs. Zündel for higher resolution pictures, but we did not want to bother her with such irrelevant questions during these hard times of struggling for the freedom of her husband.