‘Nazi Grandma’ Will Serve Jail Time In Germany For Holocaust Denial
Image by Getty Images
(JTA) — The octogenarian known as the “Nazi Grandma” will serve 14 months in a German prison for Holocaust denial after losing an appeal on one of several convictions.
Ursula Haverbeck, 89, was sentenced Tuesday by a district appeals court in Detmold for repeatedly denying the Holocaust, which is a crime in Germany.
In September 2016, a court in Detmold sentenced Haverbeck to eight months in jail on charges of sedition after she said Jews were never exterminated in Auschwitz. She also reportedly made offensive comments in the courtroom.
At the end of the trial she handed out leaflets to journalists, the judge and prosecutor titled “Only the truth will set you free,” which also included denial of Nazi atrocities during the Holocaust. In response, the court increased her sentence by several months, according to Deutsche Welle.
A year ago, Haverbeck was sentenced by a Hamburg court to 10 months in prison for Holocaust denial after saying on television that the Holocaust was “the biggest and most sustainable lie in history.” She made the statement to reporters outside the trial of former SS guard Oskar Groening, who was found guilty for his role in the murder of 300,000 at Auschwitz.
Haverbeck, who was dubbed “Nazi Grandma” by the German media, has been convicted and sentenced to prison on several other occasions for writing articles denying the Holocaust and incitement to hate. She has appealed all the decisions, however, and has yet to spend any time in jail.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
