Neo-Nazi accused of 'racial hatred' goes on the run

The Telegraph (England)/January 16, 2000
By Jessica Berry and Chris Hastings

Germany has issued an international arrest warrant for a Holocaust revisionist who fled to Britain to escape a prison sentence for inciting racial hatred.

Police here have joined the hunt for Germar Rudolf, who has been on the run from his home in Stuttgart since 1995. If he is arrested on British soil, he faces extradition or deportation. One source close to the case said: "Concern about this man's presence in Britain has been raised at the very highest level. The Home Secretary is likely to want to do all he can to help the Germans bring this man to justice."

The warrant was issued three months after Rudolf was traced to the south coast by The Telegraph. He has not been seen at his home for some time and police have not ruled out the possibility that he may have left the country. An internet site which he runs from a PO box address in Hastings was still being updated last week. It carried the message: "Germar Rudolf is alive and still free." The site also carries an appeal for funds and volunteers to help with the revisionist cause.

Rudolf, a former German air force pilot, was sentenced to 14 months in prison in 1995 for three counts of inciting racial hatred. He was found guilty of breaching Germany's Holocaust denial legislation after he produced a study claiming that Jews did not die in gas chambers at Auschwitz. Rudolf escaped to Spain were he stayed with a former Nazi general who had been a close friend of Adolf Hitler. But in 1996, fearing that the German authorities were catching up with him, he moved to England.

David Irving, the Right-wing historian who is currently involved in a High Court libel action against Prof Deborah Lipstadt, one of his fiercest critics, was one of the first people Rudolf contacted when he arrived in Britain and both men have been supportive of each other.