German prosecutors on Tuesday charged the former lawyer for Ernst Zundel for the uniquely democratic crime of “incitement.” Her crime, apparently, was to allege that the Holocaust was exaggerated and using the words “Heil Hitler” during one of her legal filings.
Sylvia Stolz represented Ernst Zundel in his first trial, which collapsed after Stolz was banned from proceedings on grounds she was trying to sabotage the proceedings. Zundel’s second trial at the Mannheim state court ended last month with his conviction for incitement for denying the Holocaust.
Mannheim prosecutors said in a statement that Stolz herself has now been charged with incitement, attempting to thwart a prosecution and using symbols of a banned organization.
Stolz told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that while she anticipated she might be charged, it was part of her fight against what she considers an illegitimate government built upon the postwar allied occupation of Germany.
“We are under foreign occupation, and this foreign occupation has portrayed Adolf Hitler as a devil for 60 years, but that is not true,” she said. “But the real truth can only be told when someone attempts to break this taboo.”
Stolz is also accused of trying to “force an end to the proceedings” with constant interventions and “provocations” that disturbed the conduct of the trial. The presiding judge halted Zundel’s trial last March to ask for Stolz’s removal after she denounced the court as a “tool of foreign domination” and described Jews as an “enemy people.” In April, she was carried out of the court room, shouting “Resistance! The German people are rising up,” after defying an order for her removal. Prosecutors said they are seeking a ban on Stolz working as a lawyer.
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