EJP | News | Germany | Trial date set following Anne Frank Diary book burning

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Trial date set following Anne Frank Diary book burning

Updated: 28/Dec/2006 19:01

Pretzien, eastern Germany

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BERLIN (EJP)-- The prosecutor’s office for the state of Saxony-Anhalt, in eastern Germany, has filed charges against seven men accused of instigating the burning of books which included the famous Diary of Anne Frank.

During a midsummer’s night party, celebrated on June 24, several right-wing extremists demonstratively burned a copy of the Holocaust victim’s diary in the village of Pretzien.

A few days earlier, in the neighbouring village of Ploetzky, demonstrators burned an American flag in the presence of the village’s mayor who did nothing to stop it.

In Pretzien, the book burners called into question the authenticity of the Anne Frank diary – citing official documents by the Federal Criminal Office (BKA) which in the 1980s questioned whether the entire penmanship was truly that of Anne Frank.

Thomas Heppner, director of the Berlin based Anne Frank Centre, immediately filed a complaint with the state’s attorney’s office saying that he would combat any attempt to downplay the truthfulness of the famous diary. Heppner was particularly disturbed that an Anne Frank defamation statement appeared as a blog on the Pretzien village website one month earlier – at www.Pretzien.de, in May. The prosecuting State attorney’s office investigated the matter and made its conclusion last week that charges should be filed.

The Schönebeck criminal court responsible for criminal matters stemming from Pretzien, accepted the prosecutor’s petition to go to trial. The trial, against the seven men, ranging in age from 23 to 28, will begin on February 26. Each of the men from Pretzien and Ploetzky are being charged with inciting racial hatred and for having disparaged the name of the dead. They will also be tried for participating in or for having tolerated heckling which glorified National Socialism. “The book burning in which a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank was destroyed and the use of neo-Nazi rhetoric was used mocks not only Anne Frank’s memory, it derides the remembrance of all those who died in the concentration camps of the National Socialist regime,” the prosecutor’s office wrote in its petition.

Friedrich Harwig, mayor of Pretzien, a town that lies in the middle of Germany’s fabled Romantic Highway route, had apologized for and distanced himself from the incident. He attacked the instigators’ motives severely. In a press release, he and the village council apologized for not having been able to stop the book burning or catching the racist blog before it went online. He was also unaware of the flag burning that took place days earlier. The mayor promised to educate his citizens further – though he believes that the vast majority of Pretzien’s population was not involved.