Horst Mahler, a founding member of the Marxist guerrilla group Red Army Faction (RAF), later known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, who went on to become a far-right extremist and multiple-time Holocaust denier, has died at the age of 89, his lawyer announced Monday.
Born on January 23, 1936, Mahler became a lawyer and in 1969 defended far-left activists Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin in court. Shortly thereafter, he co-founded the Red Army Faction with them.
The RAF emerged from student protests in Germany against the Vietnam War and went on a violent campaign that killed 34 people and wounded hundreds more, in what members described as a struggle against “American imperialism and capitalist oppression of the working class.” The terrorist group had ties with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and some members received training in camps in Jordan. It was officially disbanded in 1998.
In 1970, Mahler was arrested and sentenced to 14 years in prison for a series of anti-capitalist bank robberies. During his time in prison, he renounced his radical past and was released after serving 10 years. In 1987, he was reinstated to the bar with the help of his defense attorney at the time, Gerhard Schröder, who would later become Germany’s chancellor.
In the 1990s, Mahler veered to the opposite end of the political spectrum and joined the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), remaining a member for several years. In 2001, he even represented the party in a legal case regarding a failed attempt by authorities to ban its activities.
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German prosecutors charged Mahler with three counts of inciting racial hatred and Holocaust denial. The charges stemmed from a speech in which he claimed the Holocaust never occurred, as well as from CDs and online publications in which he called for violence and hatred against Jews.
Prosecutors noted that Mahler continued to deny the Holocaust even during his trial. In his closing remarks, he expressed support for Richard Williamson, the Holocaust-denying bishop who was expelled from Argentina.
Mahler was convicted multiple times for Holocaust denial and received a cumulative prison sentence of roughly 10 years. While in prison, he wrote a 200-page antisemitic manifesto that was later published online by unknown individuals. In 2017, he fled to Hungary but was extradited back to Germany.
He was released from prison in October 2020 and lived in a town near Berlin. A new case against him was halted in April 2023 due to health concerns and was never resumed.
Mahler died at a hospital in Berlin.