"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth"
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Horst Mahler has died at the age of 89 — a controversial figure in postwar German history, Mahler was first a far-left militant, co-founder of the Red Army Faction (RAF), before becoming a notorious antisemite and prominent Holocaust denier. He died on July 27, 2025, in a Berlin hospital, according to his lawyer. His trajectory, unparalleled in its scope, exemplifies an ideological bridge between revolutionary radicalism and neo-Nazi extremism, fueled by an uninhibited antisemitism.
Born in 1936 in Haynau (Silesia), Mahler grew up in Berlin after his family was forcibly displaced in 1945. A brilliant legal mind, he studied law at the Freie Universität Berlin, where he became active in left-wing politics during the 1960s. Initially a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), he mingled with figures such as Gerhard Schröder, the future Chancellor, before drifting toward the revolutionary movement. In 1969, he founded the “Collective of Socialist Lawyers” and defended iconic figures of the German student movement, including Rudi Dutschke and members of the APO.
Mahler became one of the ideologues behind the Red Army Faction (RAF), which he co-founded with Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Ulrike Meinhof. In May 1970, he took part in Baader’s jailbreak and then traveled with his comrades to Lebanon, where they received military training in a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) camp. This stay marked a decisive ideological shift: radical anti-Zionism evolved into unabashed antisemitism, and Israel became a legitimate target of revolutionary violence. In their rhetoric, Jews were no longer seen as historical victims but as “fascists to be fought.”
Upon returning to Germany, Mahler was arrested on October 8, 1970. In 1972, he was sentenced to twelve years in prison for complicity in terrorist activities (including attacks on U.S. military bases, police stations, and banks). His lawyer, Otto Schily, would later serve as Germany’s Minister of the Interior. Released in 1980, Mahler was reinstated to the bar thanks to Gerhard Schröder’s intervention but soon began a dramatic ideological reversal.
In the late 1990s, Mahler published an article in Junge Freiheit entitled Truth Revealed, or the Legacy of the Generation of 1968, in which he argued that the ’68 generation must reconcile with the “national values” of the German people. Junge Freiheit, a media outlet known for platforming both New Right thinkers and Holocaust deniers, served as a meeting ground for ideological convergences between extremes, embodying the confusionist logic of the red-brown movement.
In 2000, Mahler joined the National Democratic Party (NPD), Germany’s main neo-Nazi party, and described himself as a “National Bolshevik,” advocating a synthesis of nationalism and Marxism. He also embraced the ideas of Francis Parker Yockey, the American fascist theorist and admirer of Hitler, whose writings on Western decadence, authoritarian European unity, and a liberal-Jewish conspiracy exerted a lasting influence on National Bolshevism. For Mahler, this trajectory was no betrayal but a continuation of his struggle against American imperialism — now rebranded as “Jewish globalism.”
Mahler was not alone. Other former German leftists such as Reinhold Oberlercher, Günther Maschke, and Klaus Rainer Röhl followed similar paths. These ideological turncoats were welcomed by neo-Nazi circles that identified with “revolutionary nationalism.” They justified their shift by claiming a pre-existing “national concern” within leftist revolutionary thought and a shared opposition to American imperialism.
Their common point of reference was National Bolshevism, a hybrid movement stemming from the German Conservative Revolution of the 1920s, notably embodied by Ernst Niekisch. After World War II, this ideology was revived by German sociologist Henning Eichberg, who contributed to journals like Nation Europa and collaborated with New Right thinkers like Alain de Benoist. In the 1980s, Eichberg wrote for Wir Selbst, a publication mixing far-right, far-left, and radical ecological thought — a symbol of ideological rupture in the name of Volk, identity, and rejection of Western liberalism.
From the 2000s onward, Mahler openly embraced a violent form of antisemitism. In 2003, he joined an initiative founded by Ursula Haverbeck, the “Association for the Rehabilitation of Persons Persecuted for Disputing the Holocaust” (Verein zur Rehabilitierung der wegen Bestreitens des Holocaust Verfolgten), becoming one of its most active supporters.
Mahler played a visible role in the high-profile trial of Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel, who was extradited from Canada and tried in Mannheim in November 2005 for incitement to racial hatred. Although disbarred in several German cities for his views, Mahler attempted to join Zündel’s defense team alongside Sylvia Stolz, his protégé and a fellow Holocaust-denying attorney. Both aimed to turn the trial into a political platform, rejecting the legitimacy of the Federal Republic of Germany and submitting documents challenging Holocaust historiography and the notion of “global Jewish power.” However, Judge Ulrich Meinerzhagen prohibited them from speaking in court, denouncing their intent to hijack the proceedings. Mahler was eventually expelled from the courtroom and forced to attend as a spectator, causing disruptions that led the judge to threaten to clear the room. On February 15, 2007, Zündel was sentenced to five years in prison.
Becoming increasingly radical, Mahler endorsed the Holocaust denial positions of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In December 2006, he attempted to participate in the Tehran International Conference questioning the Holocaust, organized by Iran’s Foreign Ministry. In the same spirit, Mahler expressed admiration for the 9/11 terrorists, whom he called liberators. Shortly after the September 11 attacks, he stated that the event had “finally” struck at the heart of the U.S. and that it was “justified,” citing America’s imperialist and oppressive role. He was tried in Hamburg in 2003 for inciting criminal acts (Volksverhetzung). He published his writings on the Deutsches Kolleg website, a neo-Nazi ideological platform.
In 2007, in an interview with Vanity Fair Germany, Mahler praised Hitler, denied the existence of gas chambers, and claimed that German Jews were not real Germans.
Mahler was repeatedly convicted for inciting racial hatred, Holocaust denial, and glorifying Nazism. He served approximately 16 years in prison for Holocaust denial and incitement, in addition to the 10 years he had served in the 1970s for RAF-related robberies — totaling nearly 22 years of incarceration, punctuated by successive medical releases. Even in detention, he continued writing, disseminating his texts through his neo-Nazi supporters. Sylvia Stolz, now his partner — herself convicted for Holocaust denial — remained one of his most loyal allies, sharing and continuing his ideological crusade.
During his final prison term, Mahler continued to portray himself as a “prisoner of war,” claiming to be a victim of “Jewish councils” and denouncing an alleged “foreign Jewish domination” and the “fabrication of the Holocaust narrative.” These statements formed part of the evidence collected for a new trial scheduled for 2023, which was ultimately suspended due to his deteriorating health.
Horst Mahler embodied one of the most extreme examples of the shift from revolutionary leftism to far-right antisemitic ideology. He fully embraced this trajectory, claiming Nazism as the logical conclusion of his political commitment. His path reveals the ideological continuity between radical anti-Zionism, antisemitism, and conspiratorial anti-Jewish thinking.
His death in 2025 does not mark the end of this phenomenon. On the contrary, it prompts renewed reflection on the evolving forms of convergence between political extremes around hatred of Israel, Holocaust denial, and the revival of a “spiritualized” antisemitism. Mahler was a pioneer of this movement — and will remain one of its sinister figures.
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