Ursula Haverbeck
November 21, 2024
URSULA Haverbeck, the German patriot, scholar and writer who spent much of the last 20 years in court and was jailed for more than two years in her 80s, has reportedly died at the age of 96. I first wrote about her in 2015 (also here).
According to Haverbeck, she simply started asking polite questions and, after receiving no answers, came to unacceptable conclusions about the death toll in World War II. In the second entry above, I quoted Nigel Jackson:
This sentencing of this woman can justly be described as a crime against humanity. Why is this?
There are two possibilities: either she is right (or largely right) or she is wrong (or largely wrong). Let us assume that the latter is true. We then have a pitiful spectacle of an elderly person stubbornly and irrationally clinging to a mistaken view of historical events. Shakespeare’s King Lear is the archetypal work of art examining the ramifications of such a situation. As we watch Lear rave in misery on the heath, we feel compassion for him; but that does not stop us knowing that his disaster has been mainly self-inflicted as a result of his stubborn holding of illusions earlier in the action. None of us, however, would want to punish him for the awful threats he issues during his agony.
If Ms. Haverbeck is wrong (and a formidable battery of opinion, including learned opinion, around the world maintains that she is), then what damage can her statements really do to anyone? …
If such is the situation, why on earth was she ever brought to trial? Why were her remarks not just passed over (‘Poor thing! Off her head, of course!’). Why did the prosecutor maintain that her age should not prevent her from being sentenced? In this scenario, we plainly have an example of inhumane treatment being meted out to a too-elderly victim.
She never gave in and never seemed angry. She had remarkable courage, dignity and graciousness. I know very little of her early life, however, and cannot comment on it. German authorities were still seeking to return her to prison at the time of her death. This song below was reportedly her favorite patriotic song:
