By FOIA Research
on September 3, 2020 - Last updated: April 10, 2023

Ursula Haverbeck

By FOIA Research on Thu, 09/03/2020 - 19:36

The holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck (*1928), aka "Nazi granny," has been repeatedly convicted for Nazi revisionism after publicly denying the reality of gas chambers in Nazi extermination camps.1 She is currently serving a 2 1/2 year prison sentence, which ends in November 2020.2 Haverbeck is somewhat of a cult figure among right-wing extremists, and various far-right organizations are embracing the cause of Ursula Haverbeck, such as the neo-Nazi minority party Die Rechte.

Haverbeck is the co-founder of the "Guthmannshausen memorial site" (Gedächtnisstätte Guthmannshausen) in Thuringia, a meeting place for fellow neo-Nazi bigwigs. Haverbeck was a good friend of Heinrich Himmler's daughter Gudrun Burwitz until the latter's death in 2018.3

Haverbeck's husband, Werner Georg Haverbeck, a former Nazi and pastor of an anthroposophical Christian community, was the founder of the association and event venue Collegium Humanum (Internationales Studienwerk - Collegium Humanum e.V.) in Vlotho, East Westphalia, established in 1963 as “Home Education Center for the Environment and Life.” The Collegium Humanum was first active in the German environmental movement, but turned in the early 1980s towards right-wing extremism, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. In 2008, the Association was banned by the Federal Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble due to “continued denial of the Holocaust.”

The Collegium Humanum just nominally folded, and the activities of the Haverbecks continued in the framework of the association Gedächtnisstätte e.V. (Memorial Site Association), founded in 1991/1992. In 2012, the association moved into a manor in Guttmannshausen.4 A monument in the manor's garden was erected in 2014, commemorating the "12 million German victims during World War Two."5 As of 2023, the association's chairman is Wolfram Schiedewitz, while Paul Latussek is serving as treasurer. 6

2004

In 2004, Ursula Haverbeck appeared next to Horst Mahler at the Rudolf Heß March in Wunsiedel.7

2010

In 2010, Haverbeck was attending the trial of "Bishop" Richard Williamson of the SSPX Resistance in Germany, during which he was condemned to pay a €10000 fine for holocaust denial.8

2015

In August 2015, the Memorial Site Association hosted the Germanophile French Nouvelle Droite ("New Right") figure Pierre Krebs, founder of the Thule-Seminar,9 a cultish neo-Nazi group, which was originally set up as the German branch of GRECE.10

2016

In April 2016, the Identitarian fraternity leader, far-right publisher and AfD affiliate Philip Stein appeared as a speaker at the Guthmannshausen memorial site at a reader and author meeting of the neo-fascist environmental magazine Umwelt & Aktiv.11

In March 2018, Haverbeck appeared in an interview with the fellow holocaust denier, and far-right YouTuber, Nikolai Nerling, who calls himself the "People's Tacher,"12 where she - once more - openly denied the holocaust. In the video, Nerling introduced Haverbeck as "the grande dame of the freedom movement."12

The video was preceded by a "preliminary talk" between Haverbeck, Nerling and Angela Schaller on March 3, 2018,13 and apparently shot in an office of the far-right NPD party (see flyers on shelf). Angela Schaller seems to be a Reichsbürger type neo-Nazi prepper affiliated with the NPD in Thuringia and belonging to a group called Thing Kreis ("Thing Circle").14

2019

In 2019, Haverbeck was awarded the first "International Robert Faurisson Prize" in honor of the holocaust denier Robert Faurisson (1929-2018), who had died the previous year. Since at the time she was in prison, her lawyer Wolfram Nahrath received the award in her name. The price was awarded on January 25, 2019, in the framework of an international neo-Nazi meeting in Vichy, France.15

In the run-up of the European elections, foreign affairs spokesman of Die Rechte, Matthias Deyda ran as a candidate for a direct mandate in the European Parliament. On social media he had promoted his candidature as follows16 :

Together with Ursula Haverbeck and other well-known activists, I am running as a candidate in the 2019 European elections on the so-called List of National Resistance.

2020

Fans of Ursula Haverbeck were also present on the August 2020 Querdenken demonstration.17

In November 2020, Haverbeck was released from prison, but was immediately put on trial again because of aforementioned March 2018 interview with the neo-Nazi YouTuber Nikolai Nerling, in which Haverback denied the Holocaust and played down Nazi crimes.18

Haverbeck, who stated that it was the tenth trial against her, rather than being remorseful, used the courtroom for her usual propaganda. According to Der Spiegel, Haverback stated18 :

“I want to know where the six million are supposed to have been gassed. Now please tell me: Where did that take place?” ... "You never experienced that." Auschwitz was not an extermination camp and Zyklon B was "not at all suitable for mass murder," said Haverbeck.

Haverbeck was defended in the trial by the neo-Nazi celebrity lawyer Wolfram Nahrath, once the federal leader of the now banned right-wing extremist Viking Youth, as were his father and grandfather before him.18 On December 4, 2020, the district court sentenced her to 12 months in prison without probation for incitement by denying the Holocaust. The sentence is not final because Haverbeck appealed. As a result, she remains at large for the time being.

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