Manfred Roeder

For the German military judge (1900–1971), see Manfred Roeder (judge).
Manfred Roeder in 2009

Manfred Roeder (6 February 1929 – 30 July 2014) was a German lawyer, Wehrmacht soldier, prominent Holocaust denier and a far-right activist.

Life

Born in Berlin, Roeder attended a National Political Institute of Education in Plön.[1] As a teenage soldier, he participated of the Battle of Berlin in 1945.[2] After the Second World War he was for a time a member of Germany's CDU party.[1] After leaving the party he forged ties with the far-right political scene in Germany and abroad, including the Ku Klux Klan.[1][3] Roeder's career has been marked by an abundance of criminal charges, including resistance against state authority,[1] and battery. In 1980 the Deutschen Aktionsgruppen ("German Action Groups"), a neo-Nazi organisation founded by Roeder, carried out attacks against buildings that housed foreign workers and asylum seekers.[1][4][5] Roeder was classified as a terrorist by German legal authorities as a result of these activities.[6]

In 1997 the current affairs program Panorama revealed that in 1995, Roeder had appeared, by invitation, as a speaker at the German military's officer training academy[1] in Hamburg. This scandal, as well as the fact that Roeder had received financial donations from the military, led to the sacking of the academy's commander[6][7] and the instatement of Rear-Admiral Rudolf Lange[8] as his replacement, with the goal of restoring the good reputation of the academy.

In 1997 Roeder stood as the NPD candidate (a far-right party) for Stralsund in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern during the parliamentary elections,[1][9] promoting himself as "Chancellor alternative 1998", but was unsuccessful.

Roeder died on 30 July 2014 at the age of 85.[10]

Criminal record

Because of his integral role in a terrorist organisation Roeder was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 1982,[1][6][11] and was released in 1990,[11] after serving two-thirds of his sentence, for good behaviour and a perceived social rehabilitation. In 1996 Roeder, together with other far-right extremists, perpetrated an attack on an exhibition in Erfurt detailing the role of the Wehrmacht in Nazi Germany, for which he was charged with property damage and fined DM-4,500.[12] After being sentenced to prison by the state courts of Schwerin[13] and Rostock[14] under Germany's Volksverhetzung law (incitement to hatred), and for other crimes, he was given a further ten months in September 2004 by the state court of Frankfurt for contempt of the state.[15] In February 2005 a further sentencing for the same crime was passed by the court of Schwalmstadt.[16] On May 12, 2005 he began a prison sentence in Gießen, but he was released shortly after on health grounds.[15]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 „Porno-Anwalt“ als Größe der Neonazis Bergsträßer Anzeiger, 7 July 2007. (Large pdf) (German)
  2. ↑ Anti-Roeder-Arbeitskreis, NSDAP-Propagandisten unter der Lupe – Dokumentation, Hamburg 1978, p. 20 (German)
  3. ↑ Detlef Junker, Philipp Gassert and Wilfried Mausbach (2004). The United States and Germany in the era of the Cold War, 1945-1990. 2. Cambridge University Press. pp. 497–498. ISBN 9780521834209.
  4. ↑ David Charters (1994). The deadly sin of terrorism: its effect on democracy and civil liberty in six countries. Greenwood. p. 47. ISBN 9780313289644.
  5. ↑ Lee Griffith (2004). The war on terrorism and the terror of God. Wm. B. Eerdmans. p. 53. ISBN 9780802828606.
  6. 1 2 3 Bundeswehr will im Fall Roeder hart durchgreifen Die Welt, 8 December 1997. (German)
  7. ↑ Rühe zieht Konsequenzen im Fall Roeder Rüdiger Moniac, Die Welt, 9 December 1997. (German)
  8. ↑ Volker Rühe: Auf Kampfstation Focus, 15 December 1997. (German)
  9. ↑ Ein notorisch Rechtsextremer will nach Bonn Andreas Baumann, Die Welt, 18 September 1998. (German)
  10. ↑ "Rechtsextremist Roeder starb 85-jährig in Neukirchen | Politik" (in German). Hna.de. Retrieved 2014-08-01.
  11. 1 2 Rand C. Lewis (1996). The Neo-Nazis and German Unification. Greenwood. p. 25. ISBN 9780275956387. Preview at Google Books.
  12. ↑ Die Wehrmachtsausstellung zwischen Krawallen und Kritik Der Spiegel, 27 November 2001. (German)
  13. ↑ Volksverhetzung: Neonazi Roeder muss ins Gefängnis Der Spiegel, 29 June 2001. (German)
  14. ↑ German Neo-Nazi sentenced to two years in prison ORF, 30 January 2002.
  15. 1 2 Bewährung wegen schlechter Gesundheit, 13 November 2009 (German)
  16. ↑ Die "KRR"-FAQ - Archiv 2005 (Januar bis März) (German)
Much of this article is translated from the German Wikipedia article of March 5th 2007.
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