Ex-mayor convicted of holocaust denial is fully aquitted by state's highest court

Hans Püschel at a Forum in Hohenmölsen (Sachsen-Anhalt) in 2011.

IN SAXONY-ANHALT, A FORMER EAST GERMAN STATE in the Federal Republic of Germany (right), the highest court threw out a financial judgment against Hans Püschel, who is a former mayor of Krauschwitz, a small town of 600 people.

Püschel had been convicted in 2013 in a criminal court and fined a total of 3,000 euros for controversial comments written in a blog about the “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe” in central Berlin and on the influence of Jews in German society.

This decision was upheld by a higher regional court in 2014. But the state's highest court overturned the regional court's findings and nullified the penalties. It wrote in its judgmet that it found no evidence that Püschel had “trivialized” the Holocaust in general.

The supposedly illegal parts of his writing were quoted by dw.com as:

"If we put a thousand hunks of concrete in the middle of Berlin for murdered Jews, then at least 3,000 belong there alongside them for murdered Germans."

And a reference to

"the dubious to virulent and devastating influence of Jews and Zionism on Germany."

Jews express shock and outrage

As expected, those asked for comment include the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and a pro-”Holocaust historian” in Berlin. Josef Schuster told Die Welt newspaper:

“Attempts to rewrite German history and mock the victims of National Socialism are an unacceptable trivialization of the crimes of the Nazis.”

He is apparently referring to the idea that Germans were murdered en mass and that they should be memorialized. That's not accepted history according to Jews!

Christoph Jahr, historian at Humbolt University, said he could not comprehend the court's “very benevolent tone” and he could only describe its decision as “scandalous.”

Oh my, how awful to not punish this man for speaking up for Germans. What a precedent is being set! Püschel, for his part, said he was not celebrating the verdict and lamented the unpleasant consequences in his life because of the prior convictions. "There is no pleasure when one gets into trouble everywhere - even within his own family - because of his beliefs," he said.

He is reported to have made further statements about his displeasure at Jewish participation in Germany society today.