Another Holocaust denial trial

ERLANGEN, Germany - Well-known environmentalist Dr. Johannes Lerle, 55, was sentenced in mid-June by an Erlangen court to one year in prison for alleged "racial incitement." The charge stems from his "public denial or minimizing of National Socialist atrocities in a manner designed to disturb the peace."

Asked in an interview with the Catholic publication Kreuz (Cross) if he was a "Holocaust denier," Lerle said that such a question belongs in the realm of religion. He pointed out that while one could deny the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection of Christ, the so-called Holocaust had become a state-mandated article of faith in which questioning of the manufacture of bars of soap and lampshades out of human tissue by the National Socialists had become a punishable offense.

Lerle declared that he was prepared to stand for the truth agains the lie, regardless of the consquences.