Revisionist Focus: Verlag der Freunde

In last issue’s “Revisionism Rampant ‘round the Globe,” which we aim to make a periodical update on what revisionist individuals and groups are accomplishing and enduring worldwide, we stated that the Verlag der Freunde, a Berlin-based outfit, published Nazi materials, including an SS song book.

On December 11, we received a letter from Andreas Roehler, one of VdF’s principals, expressing his surprise at our statement, and wondering how SR came by its information.

The answer: unpardonable sloppiness—while the Verlag der Freunde advertises and sells material produced in the Third Reich (including a tape cassette, Die Leibstandarte [SS] singt), it doesn’t publish such material. Nor does the VdF publish or distribute postwar material promoting National Socialism. In these regards, it is no different from the IHR, which likewise sells films and musical tapes from the Hitler era.

Such distinctions are important—above all in Germany, where in November of 1995 and July of 1996 swarms of police raided the premises, and living quarters, of the VdF’s publishers, in search of evidence of Roehler and his associate Peter Toepfer’s involvement in Volksverhetzung (inciting national hatred—in this case, against Jews). The police seized all sorts of material, much of it not for distribution, which (like cops and prosecutors everywhere) they are currently—in the ongoing trial—attempting to inflate and distort the significance of.

As an example, not merely did the forces of law and order cart off and enter into evidence a cassette of the film Jud Suess, they went on to claim that this film was the work of revisionist (and leftist) French Professor Serge Thion—born about the time the film was made! It’s as if the FBI, ransacking CODOH’s offices, had confiscated a private copy of Birth of a Nation (which we don’t in any case possess) and claimed its “author” was, say, Arthur Butz.

Police state though the Bundesrepublik may be—at least in regard to revisionism—certain legal forms are still adhered to: it is legal to sell NS-era material to “consenting adults” with a professed scholarly interest, while not to minors, or in furtherance of (National Socialist) political goals, etc., etc. So we want to make it perfectly clear here that our remarks in the previous issue of SR were in error, and that we are aware of no publishing or distribution by the VdF that violates Germany’s crabbed censorship laws.

Roehler and Toepfer are presently being tried in Berlin on the Volksverhetzung charge. The state has snipped here, snipped there among the various articles and publications emanating from their publishing house to produce an indictment supported by a pastiche of isolated quotes, like a clip-and-paste blackmailer's note. Procedurally, the trial has included the usual irregularities and bullying on the part of the state.

It will be a pity if the Verlag der Freunde is suppressed. This would mean above all the loss of its—as we’ve had time to discover during the last several weeks— outstanding periodical Sleipnir, which contains a variety of revisionist, new rightist, and independent essays, reports and documentary material (from across Europe), of rare intelligence, open-mindedness, and scope for any sort of review in publication today—all in German of course.

[You can help the Verlag der Freunde, and receive a sample copy of Sleipnir, by sending your donation to: Andreas Roehler (V.I.S.d.P.), Peter Toepfer GbR, Verlag der Freunde. Postfach 350264. 10211 Berlin, Germany (Tel/Fax (0-30) 6927863 & 29491546)]

[Verlag der Freunde does no longer exist due to constant persecution. Ed.]