40 Facts About Horst Mahler

Horst Mahler was born on 23 January 1936 and is a German former lawyer and political activist.

Horst Mahler once was a far-left militant and a founding member of the Red Army Faction before later switching to neo-Nazism.

Horst Mahler was born at Haynau in Silesia on 23 January 1936, the son of a dentist.

Horst Mahler took his school-leaving exams in Wilmersdorf, Berlin in 1955 and then studied law at the Free University of Berlin with the support of the German National Merit Foundation.

Horst Mahler joined the Thuringia Association, a right-wing Studentenverbindung, but soon afterwards became a member of the socialist student body SDS.

Horst Mahler founded a law firm in Berlin in 1964 and specialised on advising small and medium enterprises.

Horst Mahler was expelled from the SPD in 1960, along with other members of the SDS, who were no longer an SPD youth wing but had become a radical left-wing group.

Horst Mahler joined the new organisation's call for "extra-parliamentary opposition", or forceful resistance.

Horst Mahler was one of the founders of the Republican Club, a West Berlin leftist organisation established in 1966.

Horst Mahler became active as a lawyer who defended left-wing students facing criminal prosecution.

Horst Mahler was tried and convicted for the bank robberies and for assisting a prison escape.

In 1980, Horst Mahler was freed from prison after serving ten years of his fourteen-year sentence.

In 1988, again with the help of Schroder, Horst Mahler was granted permission to resume practising law in Germany.

Horst Mahler made the acquaintance of political theorists Iring Fetscher and Gunther Rohrmoser, who visited him in prison.

Horst Mahler took little role in politics until 1998, when an article by him called Zweite Steinzeit explaining his conversion to Volkisch ideas appeared in the right-wing paper Junge Freiheit.

Horst Mahler later underlined the spiritual side of his political beliefs, while attaching it to anti-semitism, arguing that:.

Horst Mahler joined the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany in 2000.

In 2001, the German government began a process to attempt to ban the NPD, during which time Horst Mahler acted as an attorney for the party.

In 2003, after the official case to ban the NPD had been rejected by the German courts, Horst Mahler left the party.

Horst Mahler was involved in founding the Society for the Rehabilitation of Those persecuted for Refutation of the Holocaust on 9 November 2003.

Horst Mahler announced the formation of the society with an open letter in which he stated that its objective was "to eliminate the isolation of the persecuted which has dominated so far, is to guarantee the necessary public awareness of their struggle for justice, and is to provide the financial means for a successful judicial struggle".

Since 2003, Horst Mahler has faced numerous charges in German courts, including a charge of Volksverhetzung in connection with statements he made regarding the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Horst Mahler told the court that the incident was a "concocted conspiracy" and that "it is not true that al-Qaeda had anything to do with it".

Horst Mahler was charged for Holocaust denial under the Volksverhetzung law in 2004 in connection with his role in the VRBHV.

Horst Mahler's passport was revoked for six months by the German authorities in January 2006 to prevent him attending the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran, Iran.

On 8 April 2004, the local court of Berlin-Tiergarten issued a Berufsverbot against Horst Mahler, forbidding him from practicing law.

Horst Mahler described how his mother, bursting into tears, told him and his brothers that they have Jewish ancestry and are one-eighth Jewish.

In November 2007, Horst Mahler was facing new Volksverhetzung charges stemming from an interview for Vanity Fair with Michel Friedman, a former vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

Horst Mahler claimed to have performed the salute as a "testimonial of his worldview".

On 21 February 2009, Horst Mahler was sentenced by a Munich court to six years' imprisonment without possibility of reduction or bail.

Horst Mahler was adjudged an escape risk, so the sentence was carried out immediately.

Horst Mahler was released in August 2015 owing to ill health; the lower part of his leg was amputated because of an infection.

Horst Mahler's sentence was lengthened following offences committed while he was in prison.

On 12 May 2017, Horst Mahler published a message stating that he is seeking asylum in Hungary as a politically persecuted refugee.

Horst Mahler was detained by the Hungarian authorities on Monday, 15 May 2017 in Sopron.

On 13 June 2017, Horst Mahler was deported to Germany by Hungarian authorities; he was greeted by lawyers after landing in Berlin and transferred to a Brandenburg prison.

Horst Mahler appears in the film Germany in Autumn, where he is interviewed in his prison cell for television.

Horst Mahler is interviewed in the first episode of the television series The Living Dead written and narrated by Adam Curtis, in which Horst Mahler talks about his father, emergence of the RAF and his departure from it.

Horst Mahler is interviewed in Curtis' 2021 documentary Can't Get You Out of My Head.

Horst Mahler is the subject of the documentary Die Anwalte - Eine deutsche Geschichte, directed by Birgit Schulz.