Rigolf Hennig

Rigolf Hennig (born May 9, 1935 in Augsburg ) is a German doctor , right-wing extremist publicist , Holocaust denier , politician of the NPD (previously the CSU , Die Republikaner , German League for People and Homeland ) as well as a leader of the Europe-wide Holocaust denier association European Action .

education and profession

After graduating from high school in Munich in 1955, he studied medicine in Munich, Freiburg, Grenoble, Berlin and Würzburg. In 1960 he obtained his license to practice medicine and received his doctorate the following year. From 1961 to 1969 he completed his specialist training at a hospital in St. Gallen ( Switzerland ), at the University Clinic Graz in Austria and at the municipal hospital in Augsburg. He has been working as a specialist in surgery since 1969, initially as a senior physician at the hospital in Wertingen and from 1970 in his own practice in Friedberg . From 1984 to 1987 he was a landowner and farmer at Gut Fürstenstein near Eschwege . In 1987 he opened a practice as a resident surgeon and trauma doctor in Verden. As a transit doctor he was in a permanent employment relationship with the professional association of health insurance companies, the community accident insurance and the armed forces , in which he served as a reserve officer , commander of a reserve hospital group and senior doctor (1977-95). After public protests against his activities on the far right, the Bundeswehr fired him as a "contract doctor".

Rigolf Hennig is married and has eight children.

Right-wing extremist functionary

Hennig began his political activity in the 1980s as a member of the board of the defense policy working group of the CSU . After moving to Eschwege and Verden , he initially did not appear politically. In 1989 and 1990 he was district chairman of the party Die Republikaner in Verden and press officer for the state executive committee of Lower Saxony . In 1990 he ran as a candidate for the state elections in Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt for the federal election .

In 1991 he left the Republicans and became active in the right-wing extremist German League for People and Homeland (DLVH). First he supported Norbert Margraf from Hanover in setting up the Lower Saxony German Alliance - United Rights , a predecessor organization of the DLVH. On October 3, 1991, Hennig co-founded the DLVH in Villingen-Schwenningen and was elected as a member of the federal board. In addition, from 1992 he held the post of second chairman of the state of Lower Saxony of the DLVH. Their party organ was the Deutsche Rundschau (DR), where he has also been a member of the editorial team since it was founded. According to the anti-fascist news , Hennig has been supporting the militant neo-Nazi and former FAP chairman of Lower Saxony, Thorsten Heise, in setting up anti-anti- fascist structures for Lower Saxony since 1993 . In the mid-1990s, Hennig took part in meetings of the right-wing society for free journalism (GfP) and, together with Dietmar Munier, was active in the German Königsberg campaign in the Kaliningrad region (formerly northern East Prussia). In 1997 Hennig left the DLVH and joined the Witikobund .

Rigolf Hennig is a member of the Rugia Greifswald fraternity , the Pennalen fraternity Chattia Friedberg zu Hamburg , in the South Tyrol Liberation Committee and in the comradeship of the South Tyrolean freedom fighters.

In the local elections in 2006 and 2011, he entered the Verden city council and the district council of the Verden district as an NPD candidate. At the beginning of 2012 he renounced both mandates in favor of a substitute person.

Publicist, anti-Semite and Holocaust denier

In 1988 the Deutsches Ärzteblatt published a series on "Medicine in the Nazi Era". In October of that year Hennig wrote a letter to the editor in which he held the Jews responsible for the persecution by the Nazis themselves. The persecution of the Jews was a “fatal overreaction of the Third Reich when trying to solve a recognized problem”. The problem is the "demarcation between Jews and their respective host peoples and the resulting problems". And this has "its causes in Jewish peculiarities", so Hennig. When asked by the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung (HAZ) whether he had doubts about the number of six million murdered Jews, he replied: “If you believe the number, it is your own fault”.

Since 1991, Hennig has published in numerous organs of the extreme right such as the Deutsche Rundschau , Europa vor , Nation und Europa , Aula and the NPD party newspaper German Voice and in magazines of the expellees' associations like the organ " Der Schlesier ". He was u. a. also active as editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Die Presse”.

In December 1993, an article by Hennig appeared in the right-wing extremist magazine “Europa vor”, in which he presented in great detail the “physical extermination of peoples or ethnic groups” using a so-called “ foreign infiltration method ” using the example of the German people. In the article entitled “Genocide”, he said: “Exchanging an Austral Negro for a South Tyrolean mountain farmer would be fatal for one person as well as for the other, and it would be fatal for the environment.” the right scene.

The Federal Inspectorate for Writings Harmful to Young People has pre-indexed the “Reichsbote” published by Hennig (subtitle: “Anzeiger des Freistaates Preußen, Ostdeutscher Pressedienst - Der Preuss”) (BAnz. No. 64, March 31, 2006).

Lawsuits and convictions

In 1997, the public prosecutor initiated proceedings against Hennig under Section 132a of the Criminal Code for “misuse of official titles”. Repeatedly he appeared as "President" of the "Free State of Prussia" with the letterhead and seal of a Prussian President. So he had u. a. “Minister of the Interior Manfred Kanther asked for a confidential interview” and “officially” as “President” of the “Free State of Prussia” turned to the German Ministry of the Interior “to clarify some questions of constitutional law”. Hennig was acquitted (see Reich Citizenship Movement ).

On July 10, 2006, Hennig started a nine-month prison sentence in the Achim correctional facility . Previously, he had tried in vain to revise the sentence imposed by the Lüneburg Regional Court in December 2005 for “serious denigration of the state” before the Federal Constitutional Court . After the competent criminal enforcement chamber in Vechta had rejected his application for early release on January 3, 2007, the Higher Regional Court in Oldenburg ordered his immediate release on January 26, 2007. He was credited with the fact that it was his first prison sentence. His age, health conditions, and good conduct in the detention center were also taken into account. The remaining three months in prison were suspended. The NPD federal manager Frank Schwerdt spoke in a press release of the federal NPD of "conviction detention".

In April 2017, Hennig was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment without parole by the Verden District Court because he denied the Holocaust and incited people several times over a period of more than two years in articles for the magazine "Voice of the Reich" . Hennig stated that he did not recognize the court and described himself as a citizen of the German Empire .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Doctors newspaper of October 24, 1994: Bundeswehr terminates contract with right-wing extremist
2. ↑ Hamburg connections: Constitutional protectors observe student fraternity. Spiegel Online, June 10, 2013, accessed July 1, 2013 . 
3. ↑ Minutes of the city council meeting on May 15, 2012
4. ^ HAZ of July 6, 1992: Brown doctor in a white coat
5. ↑ HAZ of July 18, 1994: Verden doctor is considered a 'dangerous mastermind'
6. ^ Frankfurter Rundschau, September 27, 1997: On the person: Rigolf Hennig
7. ↑ Incitement of the people: Holocaust denier Hennig is to be behind bars for 18 months . bnr.de, April 14, 2017