Reminiscences of Fredrick Töben—A Teacher first and foremost

By Carolyn Yeager

GERALD FREDRICK TÖBEN DIED ON JUNE 29 (my birthday) at the age of 76 in Australia where he had lived since he was 10 years old. I'm under the impression the cause of death was a several months long battle with cancer. No one personally informed me of his death. A frequent commenter at my website, David, gave me my first knowledge of it on that day. I was surprised to find so little written about it in the coming days, but I did not reach out to anyone, except for asking Germar Rudolf to corroborate it. He hadn't known either at that point. I thought someone would reach out to me, but no one did. So there we are—the sad fate of a truth-teller and German-defender in our crazy Jew-rocked, Negro-rocked world of 2020—whose demise seems to make little impression.

I confess I was estranged from Fred Töben during the past 3 or more years, though we had once been, in my estimation, quite good friends. That was my choice and I won't go into it, except to say it stemmed from my own tendency toward intolerance. In the summer of 2010, I took advantage of the opportunity to meet Fredrick in person when he came to Austin to spend a few days with James Damon and his wife. Ray Goodwin and a lady friend of Fredrick's from Kerrville were driving up for an overnight stay in order to meet the well-known revisionist and invited me to come along. I was excited about seeing Professor Töben in the flesh. I had just started my first radio broadcast, The Heretics' Hour with Voice of Reason network, and hoped to record an hour interview with him while there. The three of us met Fredrick at the Austin airport and he looked so exactly like his photographs (he always wore a black suit, white shirt and tie – I don't think he owned any casual clothes!) that I felt I was with a famous person that all the world would recognize too! The way the weekend worked out, I spent a lot of time in Fred's company and so got to ask him many questions about various personalities and events, which he was more than willing to answer. Fred loved to talk but was also a very attentive listener, was truly interested in what made people tick—we went to bed very late that night. However, he backed out of the audio interview the next day because something I said aroused his suspicion that I might be an enemy plant up to no good! Something was going on in his life at that time that worried him. Later on he aplogized for that mistake, which was his loss since he liked being interviewed. Here is a picture taken of the four of us at James Damon's home on the first day.

Fred was used to traveling around and staying with supporters for periods of time, so he was easy-going and always ready to go with the flow. He advised me that he never created any expectations, so he was never disappointed no matter happened. I told him I couldn't imagine that for myself!

Fred was a philosopher; not only trained in that discipline but it was his natural manner of approaching life. He was a teacher above all. I think it could be said he lived to teach; he could not stop teaching, was always teaching. Because of his “unacceptable” beliefs upholding Truth for Germany, he was dismissed from his teaching posts and eventually couldn't look forward to ever getting one again. I see teaching as his role in the Holocaust Revisionist movement. He made no discoveries or innovations; he followed already plowed ground, but he wanted to help spread the good news and make it understandable to the world because he was a devotee of truth and learning. As a teacher, Fred was a great Encourager. He never failed to encourage newcomers, and first efforts at coming into one's own in Revisionism. He certainly always encouraged me. He noticed that I was self-critical, especially when I jumped into controversial questions (that I couldn't seem to stay out of), so he got into the habit of telling me: You did good! - when I began to question or otherwise worry over something I had just said or done. Later, he would just send me a message immediately after my program ended—You did good! And often add some soothing reasons why.

It may have been this very equanimity that made him a target of the law and put him in prison a couple of times. Fred really thought that everything could be discussed in a civilized, mutually respectful manner. Why not? The hatred displayed by authorities committed to enforcing unreasonable laws no doubt truly shocked him as it was so foreign to his nature. But he took that in stride too, and made his time in jail a worthwhile learning experience. One of his three books resulted from these experiences: Fifty Days in Gaol, 2010. The other two are Forty Days in Teheran, 2007; and Fight or Flight: The Personal Face of Revisionism, 2003. Only the 2nd book is currently available.

Fredrick was a huge fan of the great German composer Richard Wagner and philosopher Martin Heidegger and mentioned them often. He also liked to recommend the Hegelian dialectic as a life-giving process, a sort of win-win, as opposed to the Marxist or Talmudic dialectic that seeks to kill off the opposition.

Fredrick, now that you're no longer physically present among us, I wager that your philosophical view and equanimity is still in force and you forgive us all whatever offenses we committed against you. Hail Fredrick! Thank you for your selfless contributions to our cause, and for being a dedicated teacher. You did good! I never say Rest in Peace because I don't believe in that, so I'll just say thanks for your friendship, for sharing a small part of yourself with me. It benefited me.