Paul Latussek

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Paul Latussek (born September 6, 1936 in Gliwice / Upper Silesia , now Poland ) was Vice President of the Association of Displaced Persons (BdV) from 1992 to 2001 and its regional chairman in Thuringia from 1990 to 2001 . Until 2001 he was also regional chairman of the Silesian Landsmannschaft . In 1990 he was also a member of the People's Chamber of the GDR and state chairman of the German Social Union (DSU).

Life

As a result of the expulsion in 1945, Paul Latussek and his family came to Saxony via Bohemia , completed an apprenticeship as an electrical machine builder and began studying electrical engineering at the Technical University of Dresden . In 1965 he continued his studies at the Technical University of Ilmenau . The electrical engineer received his doctorate here and, after completing his habilitation in 1980, was appointed lecturer.

In 1999 the regular employment relationship with the TU Ilmenau was terminated and converted into a teaching position at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering / Information Technology. On November 15, Latussek left the university.

From 1992 to 2001 he was a member of the BdV Presidium as Vice President or Member of the Presidency. The remarks he made in this connection gave rise to severe criticism on several occasions and were the reason for his dismissal in 2001.

Political activity

In 1989, during the reunification of the GDR , Latussek, who had been independent until then, first became active in the New Forum and in 1990 stood in the first free Volkskammer elections in constituency 04 (Erfurt) for the DSU, for which he was also elected to parliament. He advocated a quick unification of the two German states. In the vote on the Oder-Neisse border , Latussek voted against the border treaty. Latussek worked from May to September 1990 for the DSU in the “Political Advisory Committee” to prepare the state of Thuringia . He also headed working group 5 “Administrative structure” formed by the PBA. For several years he was the Thuringian state chairman of the DSU. Since 1990 he has also been the regional head of the Association of Expellees in Thuringia.

In 1998/1999 he was Deputy Federal Chairman of the Federation of Free Citizens (BfB).

In 2013, as a member of the Alternative for Germany party, without a mandate from the state executive , Latussek tried to independently initiate the establishment of an AfD district association in the Ilm district . After it became known, his membership was initially suspended and further action is being examined.

Publications and statements by Latussek

Latussek published in numerous right-wing conservative or right-wing extremist magazines such as Nation und Europa , Deutsche Wochenzeitung and Junge Freiheit . In 1995 a contribution by Latussek appeared in a book by Hohenrain Verlag, a subsidiary of the right-wing extremist Grabert Verlag . At an event organized by the right-wing society for free journalism (GfP) in 1997, he appeared as a speaker. In 1998 Latussek is said to have taken over the financing of a billboard on Ilm-TV, a regional television station, which called for participation in a demonstration by the NPD and militant free comrades on May 1st in Leipzig .

In the Thuringian state parliament on May 16, 2000, Latussek distributed a leaflet with the title “What every German should know”. Here he complained, among other things, of an "arbitrary shifting of the German eastern border to the Oder and Neisse rivers" because this meant a "loss of territory of the territory of the German Empire". He also accused Poland and the Czech Republic of "mistreating children and young people in the process of forced polonization and forced Czechization" and wrote about the " genocide of the East German tribes". Latussek did not want to distance himself from the leaflet, which, in the opinion of the vast majority of MPs, had "German tinkering and history-falsifying" content. The increasing public pressure led, among other things, to the fact that he was unloaded again on November 7, 2001 as a speaker at the BdV's “ Home Day ” in Düren .

For the end of May 2004, Latussek, who despite not being re-elected, continued to call himself the regional chairman of the Silesian Landsmannschaft, was appointed speaker at the “2. "Freedom Congress" of the " German Voice Publishing House " of the NPD announced. He is also a signatory of an appeal by the “ Institute for State Policy ” under the title “8. May 1945 - Against Oblivion - May 8, 2005 ”.

Conviction for sedition

Another scandal occurred after his speech at a non-public association conference of the Thuringian BdV in Arnstadt on November 9, 2001, the anniversary of the November pogroms in 1938 . In connection with the number of victims in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp , Latussek spoke of lies and thereby played down the killing of Jews in Auschwitz.

In contrast to the written version of his statement of accounts, which was also published in several press kits, Latussek stated in his oral speech to the delegates and a press representative of the Thüringer Allgemeine , who published this in a critical article:

“The clouds of a deliberately one-sided assignment of collective guilt towards our people still prevent us from having a clear view of the crimes in recent European history and of the war guilt in the wars of the last century. This will soon change as the lies about Katyn , Jedwabne and the statements about the victims in Auschwitz and others can no longer be held. In Auschwitz there were obviously not 6 million victims, but, as I learned in Poland, 930,000 have been proven. It is not a matter of relativizing the crime, but of historical truth. You know my attitude that every victim of a crime is too much. "

On November 12th, the public prosecutor's office started investigations against Latussek for downplaying Nazi crimes . A spokesman for the public prosecutor's office justified the initiation of the proceedings on suspicion of sedition and pointed out that the criminal law provides for fines or up to five years in prison for denying, approving or playing down genocide by the Nazi regime .

On November 19, Latussek had to announce his resignation from the advisory board of the Federal Ministry of the Interior . Ten days later, an extraordinary federal assembly of the Association of Expellees in Berlin decided to remove him from his position as Vice President with immediate effect. The BdV President Erika Steinbach accused Latussek of behavior that was harmful to the association: "With your statements and the following statements you have caused considerable damage to the Federation of Expellees and its member associations, and not for the first time". With increasing public pressure, Latussek let his office as Thuringian head of the BdV rest on December 8th, but without officially resigning. Only after the funds for the BdV had been frozen on December 11th did he step down as state chairman.

In April 2004, the Erfurt Regional Court acquitted Latussek of the charge of incitement to hatred because distributing the press release to two press representatives would not be a matter of “dissemination” in the legal sense. The public prosecutor's office then went into revision. The acquittal was overturned in December 2004 by the Federal Court of Justice . On June 3, 2005, Latussek was sentenced by the Erfurt regional court to a fine of 3,600 euros for sedition.

On January 24, 2006, the conviction of sedition (downplaying the murder of Jews in Auschwitz) was confirmed by the Federal Court of Justice, as the Erfurt Regional Court announced.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Staff of the AfD in Thuringia. Anti-euro party with old rights taz, May 7, 2013
  2. ^ Thuringian AfD distances itself from convicted hate speech , Thüringer Allgemeine, May 8, 2013
  3. ↑ Federal Court of Justice - press office communication No. 153/2004 of December 22, 2004: Federal Court of Justice overturns acquittal of the charge of sedition , accessed April 19, 2012
  4. ↑ See also: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), December 23, 2004, No. 300, p. 12.
personal data
SURNAME Latussek, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer, Vice President of the Association of Expellees and Politicians (DSU), Member of the Bundestag
DATE OF BIRTH September 6, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Gliwice , Upper Silesia , today Poland