Günter Deckert (politician)

Günter Deckert, 2018

Günter Deckert (born January 9, 1940 in Heidelberg ) is a German right-wing extremist and politician . The former high school teacher is one of the group of history revisionists who deny the Holocaust and has been in custody several times, among other things for sedition . He is considered a radical representative of an openly neo-Nazi course. From 1991 to 1996 he was chairman of the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). He was also active in the Baden-Württemberg state association and co-founded the party's youth organization . Deckert, a member of the NPD since 1966, had left the party in the meantime to avoid being dismissed from school. In 2005 he was removed from his party office because the executive committee rejected his leadership style. Deckert ran for parliament several times and was also elected to a local council and a district assembly.

Professional background

After graduating from high school in Weinheim in March 1960, Günter Deckert studied English and Romance languages at the universities of Heidelberg, Kiel and Montpellier. Afterwards he was a trainee teacher at the Heidelberg Bunsen-Gymnasium . In 1972 he was promoted to senior student council. From 1968 to 1982 Deckert was a teacher for English and French at the Tulla-Gymnasium in Mannheim . He then taught in the high school course at the International Comprehensive School Heidelberg and at the Carl-Benz-Gymnasium in Ladenburg , until he was dismissed from the school service of the state of Baden-Württemberg in 1988 as part of the third disciplinary procedure and his pension entitlement was lost.

Political career

In 1962 Günter Deckert joined the FDP Youth German Young Democrats . When the latter recognized the Oder-Neisse border in 1964, however , he left this group and joined the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) in 1966 . From 1968 he was district chairman Mannheim-Land. As a founding member of the Young National Democrats (JN), he became their state chairman in Baden-Württemberg in 1972. In the same year he was Bundestag candidate for the NPD for the constituency of Sinsheim .

In 1975 he was elected deputy national chairman of the NPD on the proposal of the JN; Public relations / propaganda area of responsibility.

In 1974 Deckert ran as the only opponent against the mayor of Weinheim Theo Gießelmann and received more than 25 percent of the vote. Since 1976 he has been a member of the NPD municipal council in Weinheim, and in 1976 he was also a candidate for the state parliament. From 1978 to 1982 he was NPD chairman for the Rhein-Neckar district.

In 1979 he became a member of the Committee "For the Restoration of the Death Penalty ". From 1981 to 1991 he was the organizer of the "Kurpfälzer Treffen". In 1981 he wrote the brochure Ausländer-Stop - Handbook against foreign infiltration , published by the like-minded Arndt publishing house in Kiel.

In 1982 Deckert officially resigned from the NPD in order to avoid the threat of dismissal from school. He then founded the "German List", for which he moved in 1984 to the municipal council of Weinheim. In 1987 he wrote the brochure Asylum - Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow . In 1988 he was finally dismissed from school after three official proceedings due to his right-wing extremist activities.

In 1989 he was the NPD top candidate in the district elections in the Rhein-Neckar district and was elected to the district council in the Weinheim constituency, to which he belonged until 1999. On January 18, 1991, he rejoined the NPD and was elected district chairman of the Rhein-Neckar district. In June 1991 he was elected NPD chairman with around 73 percent.

On November 10, 1991, he conducted a “revisionist” conference in Weinheim with Fred Leuchter , the author of the Leuchter Report on Auschwitz , in which he acted as translator and leader. In 1994 Deckert was NPD's top candidate in the European Parliament election. In the same year he ran for the mayor's office in Schopfheim .

On August 8, 2001, the newly founded citizens' initiative to stop foreigners announced that Deckert would run for their position as Lord Mayor of Nuremberg . According to the findings of local newspapers, the NPD was hiding behind this group of voters.

In 2005 Deckert was state chairman of the NPD Baden-Württemberg . It was first placed first on the state list for the upcoming federal election in 2005 . However, his candidacy was withdrawn along with five other people (including Jürgen Schützinger ) in order to be admitted to the state list. First place was now the DVU member Sven Eggers .

Deckert was removed from office at a federal board meeting of the NPD on October 1 and 2, 2005. The reason given was a “non-democratic leadership style”.

In the meantime, Deckert has been excluded from the NPD because he would “disturb party peace” and “endanger the required minimum degree of internal party unity”. The Federal Arbitration Court of the NPD confirmed the expulsion from the party at the beginning of March 2007.

Günter Deckert is a founding member of the German-European Study Society (DESG).

In the 2019 local elections , Deckert was re-elected to the Weinheim City Council as a representative of his right-wing radical German list (1.8 percent).

Procedure

Official criminal proceedings

Due to the radical decree , a total of three official criminal proceedings were conducted against Deckert because of his membership in the NPD. The first ended in 1978 (after four years and four instances) with an acquittal. The second ended in 1982 with a demotion from senior teacher to teacher. The third official criminal proceedings were initiated in 1985 and ended in 1988 with the dismissal from school service (because of "lack of distancing from right-wing radicalism"). Furthermore, his pension entitlements were revoked.

Criminal convictions

In 1992, a criminal case was conducted against Deckert for incitement to hatred, in which he was sentenced to one year probation and a fine of 10,000 DM. He then went on appeal and the judgment was overturned by the Federal Court of Justice in March 1994 because, according to the Federal Court of Justice, the offense of incitement to hatred through Holocaust denial had not yet been sufficiently fulfilled. This decision was viewed as a scandal by the public and the Central Council of Jews called for a change in the law that makes Holocaust denial a criminal offense. The Bundestag responded to this demand by expanding the offense of incitement to hatred to include denial of the Holocaust on December 1, 1994, so that Deckert could be sentenced to imprisonment by the Karlsruhe Regional Court in April 1995 - this time to two years' imprisonment without parole . The Federal Court of Justice confirmed its previous case law, according to which the mass murder of Jews, committed in the gas chambers of concentration camps of the Third Reich, is evident as a historical fact and therefore there is no need to take evidence. The conviction was based on the fact that on November 10, 1991 Deckert had simultaneously translated from English and commented on a lecture by the American Holocaust denier Fred Leuchter on the "Myth of Auschwitz" at the "revisionist" conference he organized .

The Mannheim Regional Court sentenced Deckert 2 February 2012 for aiding and abetting incitement of the people and the denigration of the memory of the dead to six months imprisonment. The court was convinced that Deckert had helped translate a book into German that denied the existence of gas chambers and crematoria in the Auschwitz concentration camp ( Holocaust denial ).

Imprisonment

Deckert was arrested on November 8, 1995 and held in prison in Bruchsal JVA until October 25, 2000 due to further convictions for sedition . Deckert served the second sentence mentioned above from January 2 to May 31, 2013 in the Mannheim JVA .