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Spectator
03-08-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Horst Mahler, far-left terrorist who became a neo-Nazi
One of the strangest German lives in the post-second world war era closed on 27 July 2025 with the death of Horst Mahler at the age of 89. Mahler's life epitomises the fatal German tendency for much of the 20th century to embrace extremist politics of the far-left and ultra-right, since he converted from being a hunted and jailed leader and lawyer of the Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorist group, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, to become Germany's most notorious neo-Nazi, an outspoken anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier – activities for which he also spent time in jail in his old age. Even more extraordinarily, Mahler was also a one-time legal partner of his friend Gerhard Schroeder, Germany's Social Democratic Chancellor from 1998 to 2005. As a young lawyer, Schroeder had defended Mahler and other RAF terrorists and led a successful campaign to readmit Mahler to the German Bar after he was briefly disbarred. If you want a British parallel, imagine Tony Blair defending members of the Angry Brigade in his youth. Mahler was born in Silesia (now in Poland) in 1936. The family was forced to flee west in the face of the advancing Soviet Red Army at the end of the war. Mahler's father was especially anxious to avoid the Russians, as he was an ardent Nazi, and appears to have passed his ideas on to his son. At university, where he studied law, young Horst joined one of the ultra-nationalist and conservative 'bursenschaften' – elite student societies that combined drinking and duelling with sabres. He also joined the youth arm of Germany's moderately left-wing Social Democratic Party (SPD) but soon migrated to the far-left Marxist wing of the movement. The late 60s were a period of foment among West Germany's students, with frequent violent clashes between police and students protesting against the Vietnam War and against the staunchly right-wing tabloid newspaper empire of Press tycoon Axel Springer. After the shooting of the leftist Student leader Rudi Dutschke, Mahler converted his left-wing legal practice into a hotbed of the so-called 'extra-Parliamentary opposition'. His lifelong journey into illegality under the cover of the law had begun. Mahler became an active terrorist in 1968 when he organised the springing from a Berlin courtroom of Andreas Baader, an early leader of the RAF, and Baader's girlfriend Gudrun Ensslin during the couple's trial for firebombing a department store. For much of the 1970s and 80s, West Germany was convulsed by the activities of the RAF, a violent group of middle-class radicals who pursued their version of the class struggle by shooting down working-class cops, bombing 'bourgeois' symbols like department stores and US army bases, robbing banks and kidnapping and killing business leaders. They moved between their targets in fast BMWs which were nicknamed 'Baader-Meinhof Wagons' as a result. I lived in Germany at the time among such student leftists, and many a night passed in anguished debates in our communal flats as to whether the RAF's violent acts were the right way of achieving a socialist society. One morning a flatmate seized me and pushed my face against the wall lest I should recognise and betray an on-the-run RAF fugitive who had spent the night in the apartment. The thoroughly alarmed West German state responded to the challenge with crackdowns of dubious legality, but eventually the RAF militants were all hunted down and jailed. Here, some of them emulated the IRA and starved themselves to death, while others committed suicide with pistols smuggled into their cells by their lawyers. Mahler was one of those lawyers before going on the run himself with a price on his head as a hunted terrorist. He spent some time with his comrades in Palestine, undergoing military training with the PLO which almost certainly fuelled his own growing anti-Semitism. Returning to Germany, Mahler was finally caught and jailed. Hailed as a martyr by Germany's far left, by the time of his release Mahler's political views had undergone a dramatic sea change. At the funeral of a far-right activist, Mahler claimed that Germany was an 'occupied land', controlled by foreign forces in the pay of an international Jewish conspiracy. He put his new beliefs into practice by joining the neo-Nazi NPD party and defended it in court against attempts to ban it as unconstitutional. He soon proclaimed such classic Nazi ideas openly, and for the last quarter century of his life the ageing Mahler was in and out of the jails where he had spent so many years, but this time for such crimes as Holocaust denial and trying to revive Nazism. By the end of his days Horst Mahler had returned to the warped ideas he had first learned at his father's knee.
Boston Globe
31-07-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Horst Mahler, 89, dies; voice of the German far left, then the far right
In 1970, he helped found the Red Army Faction, or RAF, a guerrilla group that terrorized German society for years. Three decades later, he returned to the national spotlight when he successfully defended the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany against an effort to ban it. Advertisement Mr. Mahler spent long stretches of his adult life in prison -- first for his part in a string of bank robberies by the RAF and then, in the 2000s and 2010s, for repeatedly denying the Holocaust and praising Adolf Hitler, both of which are crimes in Germany. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Many of Mr. Mahler's erstwhile comrades on the left, including Gerhard Schröder, who went on to become chancellor, and Joschka Fischer, who later became foreign minister, considered him a tragic figure, if not mentally deranged. But Mr. Mahler insisted that they were the ones who had changed, having left behind their anti-imperialist ideals to accumulate power. 'We have a political class which betrays Germany,' he told the British newspaper The Independent in 2000. 'Joschka Fischer is a traitor. Schröder is also a traitor. He is not uninformed. He knows what's at stake.' Advertisement Mr. Mahler's enemy, he insisted, had always been the global capitalist system, which he had come to believe was trying to destroy German society through immigration and privatization. He pushed his right-wing beliefs to the extreme. After defending the National Democrats in court, he renounced the party, saying that its aspirations to join the federal parliament legitimized the postwar German state -- something that he himself rejected. He claimed that the German Constitution, adopted after the fall of the Nazis, was just a place holder awaiting the rise of a Fourth Reich, a belief he shared with the ultraradical Reichsbürger movement. Horst Werner Dieter Mahler was born on Jan. 23, 1936, in Haynou (now Chojnow), in what was then German Silesia and is now part of Poland. His parents were enthusiastic Nazis. His mother, Dorothea (Nixdorf) Mahler, received the Mutterkreuz, or Mother's Cross, for raising four children according to the ideals of the Nazi regime. In 1945, with Soviet forces closing in on their town, the Mahlers moved to Rosslau, southwest of Berlin, where his father, Willy, worked as a dentist. Germany's defeat and the end of the Nazi era left Willy bereft, and he died by suicide in 1949. The Mahlers moved again, this time to West Berlin, where Horst blossomed as a student, studying law at the Free University of Berlin. After receiving his degree in 1963, he opened his own legal practice. His early work was apolitical -- mostly corporate law -- and quite successful. But as a student, he had joined a series of left-wing organizations, and as a lawyer, he began to offer his services to activists who had run afoul of the courts. Advertisement His client list, a who's who of the 1960s German left, included Rudi Dutschke, Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin, earning Mahler the nickname the Hippie Lawyer. In time, he became one of them. He was implicated in a 1968 arson attack on a department store in Frankfurt, for which Baader was convicted. That same year, conservative publisher Axel Springer sued Mr. Mahler, claiming that he had led a riot outside its Berlin offices, hours after a right-wing activist shot and severely wounded Dutschke. In 1970, Mr. Mahler joined journalist Ulrike Meinhof and others to break Baader out of prison. They fled to Jordan, where they trained in guerrilla warfare under the tutelage of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Calling themselves the Red Army Faction, but often known in the news media as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, they returned to Germany to launch nearly a decade of bank robberies, kidnappings, bombings and assassinations. Most of the original leaders, including Mr. Mahler, were not there to see any of it. Mahler was arrested in October 1970 and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Meinhof and Baader were captured in 1972; both died by suicide in prison, Meinhof in 1976 and Baader in 1977. In prison, Mr. Mahler renounced the RAF and rejected a deal between the group and the authorities to release him in exchange for a kidnapped German politician, Peter Lorenz. (Lorenz was later freed in exchange for other prisoners.) He also began to read the works of philosopher Georg W.F. Hegel, whose concept of the historical dialectic, he later said, had shaped his conversion to far-right nationalism. The German people, he claimed, were in conflict with 'foreign' forces, chief among them Jews, and he committed himself to the struggle. Advertisement Mr. Mahler won early release in 1980. His lawyers included other veterans of the 1960s left, including Schröder, the future chancellor, and Otto Schily, who became Schröder's interior minister. In a turn of fate, Schily would face off against Mahler in the government's effort to ban the National Democratic Party. Mr. Mahler emerged as a far-right convert in the late 1990s, denouncing immigrants and calling for Germany to leave behind its guilt over the Nazi era. He founded a group called For Our Country, which, among other things, protested plans for a national Holocaust memorial. He became a fixture in the German news media for his outlandishly offensive comments. In 2001, he praised the Sept. 11 terrorists, while simultaneously claiming that the attacks had been staged by the United States. After leaving the National Democrats, he founded a group called the Association for the Rehabilitation of Those Persecuted for Denying the Holocaust. The German government banned it in 2008. Starting in 2007, Mr. Mahler spent nearly 13 years in prison for making antisemitic statements. After being released in 2015 for health reasons -- part of his left leg was amputated because of an infection -- he fled to Hungary, where he sought asylum. The Hungarians returned him to Germany, and he finished his sentence in 2020. Mr. Mahler is survived by his wife, Elizabeth (Kujawa) Mahler, and two children from a previous marriage, Wiebke and Axel Mahler. Mr. Mahler returned to court in 2022, once again for making antisemitic statements. The trial was temporarily suspended in 2023, however, after the court determined that Mahler was too sick to appear before the judge. He died before it could resume. Advertisement This article originally appeared in
Straits Times
31-07-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
Horst Mahler, German Red Army Faction co-founder and Holocaust denier, dies at 89
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox FILE PHOTO: Defendant former German lawyer Horst Mahler, with links to the far-right, awaits the start of proceedings in his trial in a court room in Munich February 17, 2009. REUTERS/Michaela Rehle/File Photo BERLIN - Horst Mahler, who co-founded the leftist Red Army Faction guerrilla group suspected of killing dozens of prominent West Germans and later became a far-right ideologist and Holocaust denier, has died in Berlin, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing Mahler's lawyer. He was 89. Mahler spent 10 years in prison for his involvement with the anti-capitalist Red Army Faction, which carried out a series of assassinations, kidnappings and bombings, mainly during the 1970s and 1980s. After crossing the ideological divide and joining the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) in 2000, he spent several more years in jail, including for racial hatred. Mahler was born in 1936 in Chojnow, which is now part of Poland. His father was a dentist and both his parents were staunch Nazis despite having Jewish ancestry. In February 1945, as Soviet forces approached during the final months of World War Two, Mahler fled westwards to the town of Naumburg with his mother and brothers. His father killed himself in 1949, several years after returning from U.S. military captivity. The family then moved to West Berlin, where Mahler studied law. During his student days, Mahler belonged to the Thuringia Association - a right-wing student fraternity - but he soon veered left, joining the Social Democrats (SPD) before being expelled from that party when he became a member of the SDS socialist student organisation. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore No entry: ICA to bar high-risk, undesirable travellers from boarding S'pore-bound ships, flights Singapore 5 foreign women suspected of trafficking 27kg of cocaine nabbed in Changi Airport Singapore Over half of job applications by retrenched Jetstar Asia staff led to offers or interviews: CEO Singapore Fallen tree branch damages two Yishun flats, showering one home owner in shattered glass Singapore Man accused of raping woman who hired him to fix lights in her flat claims she made first move Singapore Jail for ex-employee of agency under MOH who corruptly obtained $18k trip from 2 men Singapore ICJ's climate ruling may spur scrutiny of S'pore carbon tax, firms' climate action plans Singapore 'Switching careers just as I became a dad was risky, but I had to do it for my family' In 1968, Mahler received a 10-month suspended prison sentence for his involvement in violent protests against publishing house Axel Springer which followed an assassination attempt on leftist student leader Rudi Dutschke. As a lawyer, Mahler initially focused on commercial law but later defended left-wing clients in court, including Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin who had set fire to department stores in Frankfurt. Baader and Ensslin were members of the Red Army Faction, a group of left-wing militants that was born out of the student protests and anti-Vietnam war movements of the late 1960s. In 1970 Mahler fled to Jordan with Baader, Ensslin and fellow militant Ulrike Meinhof to join Palestinian guerrillas in the hope of training for armed combat. FROM MARXIST-LENINISM TO THE FAR-RIGHT After returning to Germany later that year, Mahler spent 10 years in prison for his role in founding the Red Army Faction, in robberies and in Baader's violent escape from jail in 1970. His defence attorneys in the 1970s included Gerhard Schroeder, who later became German chancellor. While in prison Mahler wrote about how he was being "internally liberated from the dogmatic revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism". In the late 1990s Mahler spoke out against what he saw as the inundation of Germany by foreigners and urged a change in policy "so that Germany is preserved for the Germans". In 2000 he joined the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) and, as a lawyer, represented the party during proceedings to ban it in the early 2000s. He quit the NPD in 2003 when those proceedings collapsed. In 2005 Mahler was jailed for nine months for inciting racial hatred of Jews. The judge said at the time that Mahler had indicated he would keep publicising his views that Jews were an inferior race and that hatred of them was normal. In 2009 Mahler was sentenced to another six years in prison for inciting racial hatred. He denied that the Holocaust - the Nazis' murder of six million Jews - had happened and that Jewish people had been systematically persecuted under Adolf Hitler. Mahler was released for health reasons in 2015, when he had a leg amputated. He was arrested again in 2017 for offences committed while serving a previous prison term but was released in 2020. REUTERS
30-07-2025
- Politics
Horst Mahler, a German Holocaust denier who was once a far-left militant, dies at 89
BERLIN -- Horst Mahler, a founding member of the left-wing Red Army Faction militant group who later became a right-wing extremist and accumulated a series of convictions, including for Holocaust denial, has died, a lawyer who represented him said Monday. He was 89. Mahler died on Sunday at a hospital in Berlin, Jan Dollwetzel, who represented Mahler at a trial in 2023, told German news agency dpa. Mahler, born on Jan. 23, 1936, became a lawyer and in 1969 defended militants Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin in a trial. Shortly afterward, he went on to found the Red Army Faction with them. The group, which emerged from German student protests against the Vietnam War, killed 34 people and injured hundreds of others in a violent campaign against what members considered U.S. imperialism and capitalist oppression of workers. It declared itself disbanded in 1998. In 1970, Mahler was arrested and sentenced to 14 years in prison over various bank robberies with a far-left motivation. He distanced himself from his extremist past while in custody and was released after 10 years. In 1987, he was readmitted to practice as a lawyer with the help of his then-defense attorney, Gerhard Schröder, who would later become German chancellor. In the 1990s, Mahler switched to the opposite political extreme, becoming a member of the far-right National Democratic Party for a few years. He represented the party in 2001 in its case against an unsuccessful attempt by authorities to ban it. Mahler racked up several convictions for denying the Holocaust, which earned him sentences totaling 10 years, and while in prison wrote a 200-page antisemitic screed that was put on the internet by unknown culprits. In 2017, he fled to Hungary after being ordered to return to prison following a break from serving his sentence due to serious illness. Mahler said after he was arrested that he had requested asylum, but his claim was not confirmed by authorities. He was extradited to Germany and returned to prison. Mahler was released in October 2020 and lived in Kleinmachnow, just outside Berlin. Another trial against him was shelved in April 2023 for health reasons and never resumed.
New York Times
30-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Horst Mahler, 89, Dies; Voice of the German Far Left, Then the Far Right
Horst Mahler, a German lawyer who over his long career lurched from a starring role in the violent world of 1970s far-left radicalism to spouting neo-Nazi hate speech in the 2000s as a leading figure in the country's far-right movement, died on Sunday in Berlin. He was 89. His lawyer, Jan Dollwetzel, confirmed the death, in a hospital. Over the decades, many 1960s radicals came to renounce their youthful idealism. What set Mr. Mahler apart was the vast distance he traveled across the political spectrum — from Communist revolutionary to Holocaust denier — not to mention his prominence in each camp. In 1970, he helped found the Red Army Faction, or R.A.F., a guerrilla group that terrorized German society for years. Three decades later, he returned to the national spotlight when he successfully defended the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany against an effort to ban it. Mr. Mahler spent long stretches of his adult life in prison — first for his part in a string of bank robberies by the R.A.F. and then, in the 2000s and 2010s, for repeatedly denying the Holocaust and praising Adolf Hitler, both of which are crimes in Germany. Many of Mr. Mahler's erstwhile comrades on the left, including Gerhard Schröder, who went on to become chancellor, and Joschka Fischer, who later became foreign minister, considered him a tragic figure, if not mentally deranged. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
