Thies Christophersen

Thies Christophersen (born 27 January 1918 in Kiel; died 13 February 1997 in Molfsee), a farmer by upbringing, was a prominent German Holocaust denier.

Christophersen and the "Auschwitz Lie"

The widely-known phrase "Auschwitz lie" (German "Auschwitzlüge") can be traced to Christophersen, whose 1974 brochure of that name disputed the existence of gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Along with Christophersen's own writings, that brochure also contains further contributions and forewords from other Holocaust deniers, including the former lawyer and convicted violent criminal Manfred Roeder (classified as a terrorist in Germany) and the former judge Wilhelm Stäglich. Since 1993 the brochure has been included on a list of materials that may not be distributed to young people, as ruled by Germany's Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons, due to its Holocaust-denying content. The foreword by Manfred Roeder was characterised by that department as inflammatory anti-Semitic propaganda, which constitutes an infringement of Germany's "Volksverhetzung" law (incitement to hatred).

Career

Christophersen, a private in the Wehrmacht, was deployed as a "special leader" by the Waffen-SS during World War II Fact|date=July 2007, and was stationed during this time at the pest control facility Rajsko, located three kilometres from Auschwitz. Christophersen claimed that, being at such a location, he would have been sure to know about any killings but was never witness to, or made aware of, any such events.

Christophersen, who was briefly a member of Germany's far-right NPD party and also the CDU party, forged close contacts, both domestically and internationally, with other proponents of the "Auschwitz lie" such as Stäglich, Roeder, Udo Walendy, Robert Faurisson and Florentine Rost van Tonningen, and with "Stille Hilfe" ("Silent Help"), an organisation assisting neo-Nazi activists. Christophersen appeared as a witness in the trial of Ernst Zündel in Canada. He was sentenced to prison several times for a number of crimes, including incitement to racial hatred.

Christophersen eventually fled the country, first to Belgium, and later to Kollund in Denmark where he spent 10 years. There he established the "Kollund-Verlag" (Kollund Publishing House), which distributed denialist material throughout the world. He appeared in two videos, in which he claimed that it was a privilege for prisoners to be detained in Auschwitz. According to Christophersen they were treated excellently, and were given the opportunity to be deployed to work groups (in reality forced labour) appropriate to their professions.

In the film "Die Auschwitz-Lüge und ihre Folgen" ("The Auschwitz Lie and Its Consequences") he was interviewed by Ernst Zündel. The speciousness with which both went about their activities is made particularly clear by this film: it appeared simultaneously with the film "Die Folgen der Auschwitz-Lüge für Ernst Zündel" ("The Consequences of the Auschwitz Lie for Ernst Zündel), in which Zündel is interviewed by Christophersen. Both films were produced at the same location, and both men wear the same clothes in each. They didn't even switch sides of the table, though admittedly Zündel wore a different tie in the other film.

His brochure "Die Bauernschaft" ("Farming Community"), in which Christophersen disseminated further Holocaust-denying material, was seized by the authorities several times, the last being in 1994.

In 1995 the distribution rights for this set of publications passed to Ernst Zündel in Canada, but he relinquished this just a year later. In the same year Christophersen settled in Switzerland, but was deported in 1996.

Christophersen died on 13 February 1997 in Molfsee near Kiel, in the proximity of his family, in the house of a friend who hid him. However his family had severed ties with him by this time.

ource

:"Much of this article is translated from the German wikipedia article of March 5th 2007"