Czech court tries another case of Holocaust denial over books rehabilitating Hitler, spreading antisemitism and racism
In Brno, Czech Republic, the Municipal Court has opened the second phase of the trial in the case of the publication in Czech translation of a book by Germar Rudolf (Czech title Holocaust pod lupou, or The Holocaust under the Microscope), which casts doubt on the facts of the Holocaust, and other similarly-attuned books. The prosecutor is charging four people with participating in an organized criminal group and with denying genocide.
The defendants claim they are innocent. In their view, the publications are works of either history or science fiction.
The trial will continue in February. The first phase was opened at the end of November 2024; the prosecutor has also charged the three publishing houses linked to the defendants.
Prosecutor Tereza Paseková read the indictment in court today, which concerns not just the release of Rudolf’s book, but also another 20 publications. In addition to books casting doubt on the Holocaust or offering alternative interpretations of that history, these include antisemitic publications dating to the interwar period.
According to the prosecutor, the books disseminate antisemitism and racism, deny the Holocaust, and try to rehabilitate Hitler. She said the defendants have also expressed their approval of neo-Nazi ideas, such as when one put an image of Hitler up next to his bed.
Vítězslav Baránek, Pavel Kamas, Erik Sedláček and Lukáš Novák were all in court to hear the indictment. All testified that they are innocent of the charges.
Only Kamas made an additional statement, telling the court that the trial is a waste of taxpayer money and time and that the indictment should never have been submitted. He called it absurd and constructed, a desperate effort to punish people for painting and writing.
Kamas said he believed some of the books at issue are about history, some are about politics, and the rest are novels or science fiction. Initially just a single case was brought and the main trial was meant to start with the four individuals and the three legal entities together.
For various reasons, the main hearing was convened but could not begin on three separate occasions, so the judge then separated the case into two parts, with the first part taking place in late November with the publishing houses Guidemedia, Náš směr (Our Direction) and Nakladatelství Pavel Kamas (Pavel Kamas Press). That line of the case will continue in early February.
The judge scheduled the continuation of the trial of the individual plaintiffs for that same date, so it can be presumed both parts of the cases will be reconnected at that point. The books casting doubt on the facts of the Holocaust were published in the Czech Republic in 2016 by Guidemedia.
The case is connected with a police raid performed in June 2020 in Brno and other locations throughout the Czech Republic. Detectives from the Czech National Headquarters against Organized Crime, together with Austrian police, raided Guidemedia and performed house searches on the people behind the publishing house.
An indictment came a year later. Two companies and four individuals were charged.
However, on the basis of a complaint, that indictment was overturned. Police reopened the investigation in the summer of 2023.
Guidemedia has also published Hitler’s speeches and faced prosecution for approving of genocide and supporting a movement aimed at suppressing human rights and freedoms. However, the Czech Supreme Court acquitted all of those charged in that case.
