The latest crime of this founding member of the Red Army Faction is ‘Volksverhetzung’ – a concept in German criminal law which bans the incitement of hatred against a segment of the population and is applied in trials relating to Holocaust denial.
That Mahler, casually throwing Sieg Heils around, was guilty of venomous anti-Semitism is without doubt. His closing trial statement – a curious mash of Hegelian philosophy and Old Testament fire and brimstone – can be read here, for anyone who’d care to.
But certain other aspects of that 2009 trial make uncomfortable reading too, and not least the judge’s assertion that Mahler had proven himself ‘unable to be re-educated’. At which point an elephant enters the courtroom and everybody tries desperately not to notice it…
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