One of the world’s most notorious Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazi activists, Ernst Zundel, died this weekend in his home in Bad Wildbad, in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany. He was 78 years old.
Zundel’s wife, Ingrid Zundel, said that her husband had died of a heart attack, but provided few additional details.
A native of Germany, Zundel lived most of his life in Canada, immigrating there in 1958. Zundel remained in Canada until he was deported in 2001 after two failed attempts to secure Canadian citizenship in 1966 and 1994.
In 1977, Zundel helped found Samisdat Publishers, which printed and distributed material denying the Holocaust including British National Front Richard Verrall’s “Did Six Million Really Die? The Truth At Last” pamphlet. Samisdat also published explicitly pro-Nazi material including Zundel’s own pamphlet “The Hitler We Loved and Why”.
After being deported from Canada, Zundel illegally immigrated to the US, moving to Tennessee, but was deported from the US back to Canada in 2003. Two years later, Zundel was deported to his native Germany, where he was charged with Holocaust denial and incitement to Holocaust denial.
Zundel was convicted in 2007 and sentenced to five years in prison, but was released in 2010.