Manfred Roeder in 2009

Manfred Roeder (6 February 1929 – 30 July 2014) was a German lawyer and Neo-Nazi terrorist. Roeder was a prominent Holocaust denier.

Life

Born in Berlin, Roeder attended the National Political Institute of Education in Plön.[1] As a teenage soldier, he participated in the Battle of Berlin in 1945.[2] After the Second World War he was for a time a member of Germany's CDU party. 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 was marked by an abundance of criminal charges, including resistance against state authority,[1] and battery. In 1980 the Deutsche 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] Two people were murdered in these attacks. Roeder was classified as a terrorist by German legal authorities as a result of these activities.[6]

In 1997, the British current affairs program Panorama said 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 candidate of the far-right NPD in 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] He had planned a fire bomb attack which killed two Vietnamese refugees in August 1980.[12] He 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.[13] After being sentenced to prison by the state courts of Schwerin[14] and Rostock[15] 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.[16] In February 2005, a further sentencing for the same crime was passed by the court of Schwalmstadt.[17] On 12 May 2005, he began a prison sentence in Gießen, but he was released shortly after on health grounds.[16]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 „Porno-Anwalt“ als Größe der Neonazis Archived 1 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine Bergsträßer Anzeiger, 7 July 2007. (Large pdf) (in 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. Vol. 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. (in German)
  7. ↑ Rühe zieht Konsequenzen im Fall Roeder Rüdiger Moniac, Die Welt, 9 December 1997. (in German)
  8. ↑ Volker Rühe: Auf Kampfstation Focus, 15 December 1997. (in German)
  9. ↑ Ein notorisch Rechtsextremer will nach Bonn Andreas Baumann, Die Welt, 18 September 1998. (in German)
  10. ↑ "Rechtsextremist Roeder starb 85-jährig in Neukirchen | Politik" (in German). Hna.de. 31 July 2014. Retrieved 1 August 2014.
  11. 1 2 Rand C. Lewis (1996). The Neo-Nazis and German Unification. Greenwood. p. 25. ISBN 9780275956387. Preview at Google Books.
  12. ↑ "Four German neo-Nazis sentenced". UPI. 28 June 1982. Retrieved 24 December 2018.
  13. ↑ Die Wehrmachtsausstellung zwischen Krawallen und Kritik Der Spiegel, 27 November 2001. (in German)
  14. ↑ Volksverhetzung: Neonazi Roeder muss ins Gefängnis Der Spiegel, 29 June 2001. (in German)
  15. ↑ German Neo-Nazi sentenced to two years in prison Archived 6 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine ORF, 30 January 2002.
  16. 1 2 Bewährung wegen schlechter Gesundheit Archived 7 September 2012 at archive.today, 13 November 2009 (in German)
  17. ↑ Die "KRR"-FAQ - Archiv 2005 (Januar bis März) (German)
Much of this article is translated from the German Wikipedia article of 5 March 2007.
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