Skinheads in Germany (Archive)
Photo: Reuters
Germany: 7 neo-Nazis charged for Holocaust denial
Prosecutors in Berlin charge seven suspected neo-Nazis with incitement and disturbing the peace of the dead for burning copy of Anne Frank's diary and US flag
Prosecutors in Berlin on Friday charged seven suspected neo-Nazis with incitement and disturbing the peace of the dead for burning a copy of Anne Frank's diary and a US flag during a celebration earlier this year.
The men, aged 23 to 28 from Pretzien and Ploetzky in the eastern state of Saxony Anhalt in Germany are accused of holding a ceremony on June 24, during which they praised the Nazis and denied the Holocaust.
"Using neo-Nazi and Nazi language, they ridiculed Anne Frank, and with her all victims of Nazi concentration camps," Magdeburg prosecutors said in a statement.
Denying the Holocaust is a crime in Germany, where it carries a maximum sentence of five years.
Anne Frank wrote her famous diary while she and her German-Jewish family hid in an Amsterdam attic for 25 months.
They eventually were betrayed to the Nazis, and Anne died at age 15 of typhus at Bergen-Belsen, Germany in 1945, just weeks before the British army liberated the concentration camp.
Only her father survived the war, returning to collect Anne's notes and to publish them. "The Diary of Anne Frank" became the first popular book on the Holocaust.
The trial is to open on Feb. 26.
