German ‘Nazi grandma’ jailed for Holocaust denial

Ursula Haverbeck is a lost cause, says magistrate, sending her to prison for 10 months

A German woman dubbed the “Nazi grandma” was sentenced to 10 months in jail for Holocaust denial.

Ursula Haverbeck told a court in Hamburg last week that the Nazis’ Auschwitz death camp is “only a belief.”

Haverbeck was charged in April with Holocaust denial after calling the Holocaust in a statement broadcast on television ”the biggest and most sustainable lie in history.” She made the statement to reporters outside of the trial of former SS guard Oskar Groening.

Groening was convicted in July as an accessory to the murder of 300,000 in Auschwitz.

Convicted former SS officer Oskar Groening listens to the verdict of his trial on July 15, 2015 at court in Lueneburg, northern Germany. Oskar Groening, 94, sat impassively as judge Franz Kompisch said “the defendant is found guilty of accessory to murder in 300,000 legally connected cases” of deported Jews who were sent to the gas chambers in 1944. (AFP PHOTO/TOBIAS SCHWARZ)

Haverbeck challenged the court to prove that Auschwitz was a death camp, the German Deutche Welle reported. She was sentenced on Nov. 12.

Magistrate Bjoern Joensson, who issued the sentence, said it is “deplorable that this woman, who is still so active given her age, uses her energy to spread such hair-raising nonsense.”

“She is a lost cause,” he added, according to Deutche Welle.

Haverbeck already has a criminal record, including two fines and a suspended sentence for sedition. She said she will appeal the sentence.

It is illegal in Germany to deny or downplay the Holocaust.