Siegfried Verbeke (born June 21, 1941,

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

) is a Belgian revisionist publisher and

Holocaust denier Denial of the Holocaust is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that asserts that the genocide of Jews by the Nazis is a fabrication or exaggeration. It includes making one or more of the following false claims: *Nazi Germany's "Final Solution" wa ...

History

Verbeke became a public figure in 1977 when, together with the later

Vlaams Blok Vlaams Blok (, VB; ) was the name of a Belgian far-right and secessionist political party with an anti-immigration platform.Erk, 2005, pp. 493-502. Its ideologies embraced Flemish nationalism, calling for the independence of Flanders. The part ...

ideologist and

senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

Roeland Raes Roland Henri Theofiel Raes (4 September 1934 – 28 November 2024), better known as Roeland Raes, was a Belgian politician, a senator for and vice president of the political party Vlaams Blok. Raes took a dr. iur. ( J.D.) at Ghent University. R ...

, he founded the Flemish denial magazine ''Haro''. This magazine distributed tapes from various speeches made by

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and philologist who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief Propaganda in Nazi Germany, propagandist for the Nazi Party, and ...

and

Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician, aviator, military leader, and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which gov ...

. During this period, he also was a member of the

Vlaamse Militanten Orde The Order of Flemish Militants ( or VMO) – originally the Flemish Militants Organisation (''Vlaamse Militanten Organisatie'') – was a Flemish nationalist activist group in Belgium defending far-right interests by propaganda and political act ...

(Flemish Militants Order), an organisation that became notorious for its attacks on immigrants,

Walloons Walloons ( ; ; ) are a Gallo-Romance languages, Gallo-Romance ethnic group native to Wallonia and the immediate adjacent regions of Flanders, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Walloons primarily speak ''langues d'oïl'' such as B ...

, and socialists. The government began dismantling the organisation in 1981 and it had ceased to exist by the 1990s. At the beginning of the 1990s, Verbeke distributed pamphlets in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

to people with presumed Jewish names. In 1993, a Belgian court sentenced Verbeke to a one-year suspended prison term for distributing pamphlets belittling the Holocaust. Verbeke was also stripped of his civil rights for 10 years (his active and passive right to vote). The next year Verbeke circulated a booklet challenging what the authors called "the official version of

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

." Two years later, in 1995, he hit the headlines again by trying to get political asylum in the Netherlands because he was banned from distributing his material in Belgium. In 1998, criminal proceedings were launched against Verbeke by the public prosecution of

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, for distributing to German addresses the

antisemitic Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

pamphlet "Goldhagen and Spielberg Lies", which attacked

Daniel Goldhagen Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (born June 30, 1959) is an American author, and former associate professor of government and social studies at Harvard University. Goldhagen reached attention and broad criticism as the author of two books about the Holocau ...

and

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg ( ; born December 18, 1946) is an American filmmaker. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, Spielberg is widely regarded as one of the greatest film directors of all time and is ...

. In 2000, Verbeke was ordered to abstain from distributing a brochure co-authored with professor of literature

Robert Faurisson Robert Faurisson (; born Robert Faurisson Aitken; 25 January 1929 – 21 October 2018) was a British-born French academic who became best known for Holocaust denial. Faurisson generated much controversy with several articles published in the '' ...

that attempted to challenge the

authenticity Authenticity or authentic may refer to: * Authentication, the act of confirming the truth of an attribute Arts and entertainment * Authenticity in art, ways in which a work of art or an artistic performance may be considered authentic Music * A ...

of the ''

Diary of Anne Frank ''The Diary of a Young Girl'', commonly referred to as ''The Diary of Anne Frank'', is a book of the writings from the Dutch-language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of t ...

''. The next year, Belgian Minister for Culture

Bert Anciaux Bert Jozef Herman Vic Anciaux (born 11 September 1959) is a Belgian politician and Vooruit faction leader in the Belgian Senate. He was one of the founders of Spirit (later known as the Flemish Progressives, then the Social Liberal Party, or ...

demanded that all Belgian libraries would remove any works by Verbeke from the shelves. In 2004, he volunteered to be exposed to

Zyklon B Zyklon B (; translated Cyclone B) was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide invented in Germany in the early 1920s. It consists of hydrogen cyanide (prussic acid), as well as a cautionary eye irritant and one of several adsorbents such ...

, the poison used in the gas chambers, as an application for the

One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge The One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge was an offer by the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) to pay out one million U.S. dollars to any famous person who could demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal ability under agreed-upon scient ...

of the

James Randi Educational Foundation The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is an American grant-making institution founded in 1996 by magician and skeptic James Randi. As a nonprofit organization, the mission of JREF includes educating the public and the media on the dange ...

. His application was rejected. In 2004, Verbeke was convicted in Belgium of

Holocaust denial Historical negationism, Denial of the Holocaust is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that asserts that the genocide of Jews by the Nazi Party, Nazis is a fabrication or exaggeration. It includes making one or more of the following false claims: ...

and given a year in prison and fined €2500. On August 3, 2005, he was again arrested at

Schiphol Airport Amsterdam Airport Schiphol , known informally as Schiphol Airport (, ), is the main international airport of the Netherlands, and is one of the major hubs for the SkyTeam airline alliance. It is located southwest of Amsterdam, in the municip ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

under an international arrest warrant issued in Germany where he was wanted for Holocaust denial and writing internet articles on the subject. He was sentenced to 9 months in prison, and released on May 5, 2006. On December 15, 2006, he was again arrested on the basis of an arrest warrant from the Court of Appeal in Antwerp, issued April 14, 2005, and was subsequently incarcerated in Belgium. In June 2008 he was fined €25,000 and sentenced with

Vincent Reynouard Vincent Reynouard (born 18 February 1969) is a French Holocaust denier and proponent of neo-Nazism. He has been convicted and jailed in France under the Gayssot Act, which bars Holocaust denial. Biography Vincent Reynouard was, according ...

to one year in prison for denialism.Prison ferme pour deux négationnistes
''Le Soir'', 20 June 2008

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Verbeke, Siegfried 1941 births Living people 20th-century Belgian criminals Belgian neo-Nazis 21st-century Belgian criminals Belgian people convicted of Holocaust denial Belgian prisoners and detainees Criminals from Antwerp Prisoners and detainees of Belgium Belgian people imprisoned in Germany