“A Lost Cause” – Neo-Nazi Octogenarian Has Been Convicted of Sedition But Has Yet To Be Jailed

iStock.com/AlenaPaulus
iStock.com/AlenaPaulus

For the fifth time since 2004 Neo-Nazi extremist, Ursula Hedwig Meta Haverbeck-Wetzel has been arrested, tried and convicted of sedition and publicly denying the Holocaust ever happened.  The eighty-eight-year-old history revisionist, a resident of Vlotho, Germany has yet to spend any time in prison as she has immediately appealed every decision made by the German courts.  In 2015 a Hamburg judge sentenced her to 10 months in jail and in September of 2016 in the town of Detmold she was given the sentence of eight months in jail.

In October of 2016 she was convicted by a court in Bad Oeynhausen and sentenced to eleven months for incitement to hate, a conviction usually given to Holocaust deniers.  She was convicted on the basis of articles she had written in a newspaper in Verden.  In her most recent trial and conviction in Berlin, she claimed that in her interview in 2016 she had quoted a book rather than expressing her true feelings.  The only problem with that statement is that she, herself, had authored the book. She has also received several fines and a suspended sentence for sedition. The German state has very serious penalties for promoting Nazism in Germany, allowing no display of the Nazi flag or the Fascist salute, and denying the Holocaust ever happened is can bring charges of agitation of racial hatred.

Haverbeck has been active in right-wing associations such as the World League for the Protection of Life in Germany, the Verein Gedächtnisstätte EV and along with her husband, the late Werner Georg Haverbeck.

Mr. Haverbeck served in Nazi Germany and was a favorite of Rudolph Hess during the early part of the war and was a believer of Hitler’s policies of racial preservation for Germany.

Mrs. Haverbeck, who has been dubbed “Nazi Grandma” by the press, has repeatedly written and spoken about her disbelief of the Holocaust and insists the living Nazis now on trial are the actual victims.  She, along with a group of Neo Nazis, was a protester at the trial of ninety-three year old Auschwitz guard, Oskar Groening, who has admitted his guilt of being associated with the murders of three hundred thousand victims of Auschwitz.  Haverbeck stood outside the courthouse and passed out paraphernalia condemning the German courts and questioning the truth of the Holocaust.  She then published a controversial interview she had given on You Tube.

After the trial, Haverbeck said the Holocaust was”the biggest and most sustainable lie in history” and the death camps were “only a belief.”  Seemingly forgetting that the burden of proof lies with the accuser, she has challenged German courts to prove the deaths at Auschwitz and calls the trials of surviving Nazis “political show trials” and the judges “merely… claim that the Holocaust is obvious and needs no proof.”  She also agrees with Professor Arthur Butz who wrote in his book, The Century Fraud that the railroads were too busy transporting ammunition, arms and soldiers to have been able to move thousands of prisoners to concentration camps.  According to Butz, the gas chambers were never used.  Haverbeck also claims that Holocaust historians are not true historians and only repeat what they have heard from others.

On her website, Haverback describes herself as an “intrepid fighter for the truth” and at the bottom of each page the phrase, “For truth and justice” is repeatedly found. She also expects Germany to pay all of the court costs she has incurred.

Magistrate Bjoern Joensson says it is “deplorable that this woman, who is still so active given her age, uses her energy to spread such hair-raising nonsense.  She is a lost cause.”

Ian Harvey

Ian Harvey is one of the authors writing for WAR HISTORY ONLINE