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ThoughtCrime: 04/21/95
 
German Court Jails Deckert for Two Years

   A Karlsruhe court under Judge Eva-Marie Wollentin on April 21 sentenced Guenter Deckert, former school teacher and chairman of the right-wing National Party of Germany (NPD), to two years jail for interpreting at the meeting at which American execution-technology consultant Frederic A. Leuchter spoke in Weinheim in November 1991. Deckert was charged with racial incitement -- the 1990's equivalent of Wehrkraftzersetzung.

    Deckert was able to make a ninety-minute speech to the packed public gallery before sentence was passed. His lawyer had demanded the case be adjourned, as it was impossible to give Deckert a fair trial in view of the government's massive political pressure on the court.

Gunther Deckert jailed for interpreting at a meeting where Fred Leuchter spoke.

    When newspapers were told that the sentence would not be suspended, there was a howl of glee from the journalists who had protested at the lenient sentence handed down last year by the Mannheim appeal judges Mueller and Orlet. They had announced a one year suspended sentence, explaining that Deckert had done what he did out of the best interests of his country, and because he, like millions of other Germans, was fed up with unremitting Jewish financial pressure on their country.
 
    The two year jail sentence was imposed after a nine hour retrial on Friday April 21, 1995. Prosecutor Hans-Heiko Klein had asked for a two year sentence to be imposed. Deckert's speeches, said Klein, had resulted in the Jews in Germany trembling in fear once more. The judges deliberately increased the sentence from the one-year suspended sentence imposed by the Mannheim appeal court, explaining that it had led to a "worldwide" outcry.
 
    The Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung spoke for many of Germany's modern editors in an editorial, intoning that it was a just sentence. "There was no reason to suspend the sentence passed on the rightwinger," it declared. "Deckert showed not the slightest repentence."
 
    Accused of having shared Leuchter's views, Deckert told the court: "I stand unconditionally by what I said."