Haverbeck-Wetzel was born in (today part of
Gilserberg) and as an adolescent, she was a member of the
Jungmädelbund, the female wing of the
Hitler Youth for girls aged 10 to 13. After
World War II, by her own account, she lived in
Sweden for four years as a homeland displaced person (
Heimatvertriebene) from
East Prussia and studied pedagogy, philosophy and linguistics, including two years in
Scotland. She married her long-time partner Werner Haverbeck,
anthroposophic pastor and former
SA and
SS officer, on 31 July 1970. For over fifty years, Haverbeck-Wetzel worked in the political shadow of her husband. After her husband's death in 1999, she took over many of his functions including chair of the international
adult education establishment
Heimvolkshochschule Collegium Humanum in
Vlotho, which they both had founded in 1963. From 1983 until 1989, Haverbeck-Wetzel was also president of the
World Union for Protection of Life (Section Germany)
non-governmental organisation, and during her tenure, she disclosed her opposition towards the Western system and the
Allied occupation of the
Federal Republic of Germany. She was temporarily a member of the
Ecological Democratic Party (ÖDP). In 1989, at the instigation of the ÖDP regional associations
Bremen and
North Rhine-Westphalia, she was excluded from the party, amongst other reasons because she attempted to organize a right-wing coalition of the ÖDP,
NPD, and other groups. In 1992, Haverbeck-Wetzel became first chairperson of the newly founded Memorial Sites Association (German:
Verein Gedächtnisstätte e.V.), remaining in that position until 2003.
Publication and other offenses 2004–2014 In June 2004, the district court of
Bad Oeynhausen sentenced Haverbeck to a €5,400 fine (180 days at €30 each) for
incitement to hatred and
Holocaust denial. In the house journal of the
Collegium Humanum, the
Voice of Conscience (
Stimme des Gewissens), she had introduced a form of denial of the Holocaust, The two incriminated publication issues were subsequently confiscated by the German authorities. In a subsequent issue of the
Voice of Conscience it was again claimed that the mass destruction of the Jews was "a myth". Packaged in a citation by the Russian newspaper
Russkiy Vestnik (
the Russian Messenger) who had published in Russia a special revisionist analysis issue of
Jürgen Graf's work, with the special
Russkiy Vestnik issue later cited favourably in Moscow's newspaper
Pravda by Valentin Prussakov, it was alleged that the number of Jewish victims of
National Socialism did not amount to six million, but to "only" about 500,000. On 10 March 2005, the court found a second case against Haverbeck-Wetzel and Cohrs. However, at the request of the
Bielefeld Public
Prosecutors Office the case was closed since "it was immaterial compared to another". Another article by Haverbeck-Wetzel in the
Voice of Conscience (November/December 2005) posited a thesis that
Adolf Hitler was "just not to be understood from the believed Holocaust or his alleged war obsession, but only by a divine mission in the world-historical context". This triggered a renewed process for Holocaust denial, and in June 2007 another fine of 40 days at €30 each by the Dortmund Regional Court. In 2008,
Collegium Humanum was banned by the
German Federal Ministry of the Interior (
Bundesministerium des Innern) in 2008. According to a 1 July 2009 newspaper article in '''', Haverbeck-Wetzel wrote in her
open letter response for the attention of Knobloch, among other things, Knobloch should not "interfere in German domestic affairs", if Knobloch does not like it in Germany, then she could "return to her origin in
Inner Asia", and: "You do not have to live in Germanyin this evil land, where, as you say, six million of you were gassed." In the
ARD television broadcast series
Panorama produced by
NDR in March 2015, and despite proceedings prohibiting, Haverbeck-Wetzel again denied the mass destruction of the Jews and discussed her views. She described "this Holocaust" as "the biggest and most persistent lie in history". Haverbeck-Wetzel protested the trial of
SS officer
Oskar Gröning, the so-called "Accountant of
Auschwitz", distributing leaflets featuring Holocaust denial outside the court and telling journalists that Gröning's admission of systematic killings in Auschwitz were false, insisting that the facility was instead a
labour camp. Haverbeck-Wetzel became the subject of a new investigation initiated in June 2015 by the Bielefeld Public Prosecutors Office, in connection with a publication in the journal
The Voice of the Empire (
Die Stimme des Reiches), prompting Haverbeck-Wetzel's home as well as that of three other accused persons to be searched by the State Criminal Police Office of
Lower Saxony (
Landeskriminalamt Niedersachsen) for evidence. In November, after being found guilty, she was sentenced to ten months in prison. In the Hamburg court, she insisted the status of Auschwitz as a place of death is "not historically proven" and is "only a belief". In an interview with neo-Nazi vlogger
Nikolai Nerling in March 2018, Haverbeck further asserted that she there was no Holocaust as she claimed that the murders took place outside of Auschwitz concentration camp and that killings by gas chamber were limited to "maybe 356,000", calling this estimated death toll "negligible" compared to other mass killings during World War II. In September 2016, Haverbeck-Wetzel was sentenced to ten months imprisonment for Holocaust denial, without the option for parole, but remained free until an appeal was heard concerning the earlier case. She had written to
Detmold's mayor, Rainer Heller, the previous February, insisting that Auschwitz was no more than a labour camp, and that those who survived were only "alleged witnesses"; that was after the trial of former Auschwitz
SS guard
Reinhold Hanning. In October 2016, she was sentenced to 11 months in
Bad Oeynhausen for incitement to hate. In court again the next month, Haverbeck-Wetzel was sentenced in
Verden to 2 more years in prison for Holocaust denial, after restating her claims in
Voice of the Reich (
Stimme des Reiches). Her attorney appealed the verdict, arguing it violated Haverbeck's right to free speech. In February 2017, she was sentenced in Detmold to ten months for incitement to hatred and slandering the memory of the deceased (
Verunglimpfung des Andenkens Verstorbener), after she shared Holocaust denial brochures after her September 2016 trial. An appeal led to an increased sentence of fourteen months. In October 2017,
Berlin-Tiergarten court separately sentenced Haverbeck to six months imprisonment. Haverbeck served a 2 year sentence at JVA
Bielefeld-Senne, beginning May 2018, after authorities were required to fetch Haverbeck due to her failure to show up to JVA Bielefeld-Brackwede. When questioned about her statements during the Nerling interview in 2018, Haverbeck claimed that she was "just asking questions" and stated that she could not tell if the Holocaust happened because she had not "witnessed any crime" herself. She was released in November 2020. The state court of Bielefeld and the higher regional court of Hamm denied her constitutional complaint which argued that Holocaust denial was protected under free speech. In February 2022, Haverbeck again stood trial for incitement to hatred the state court of Berlin, receiving a 1-year sentence. She appealed her 2017 Berlin-Tiergarten sentences in April 2022 and unsuccessfully sought a reduction to probation. On 26 June 2024, she was convicted by the court of Hamburg, being a continuation of her 2015 trial, and sentenced to an additional 16 months at JVA Bielefeld-Senne. Neither sentence was ever enforced due to an investigation into suspended sentencing due to health concerns, despite her getting registered at a prison hospital facility. Haverbeck died on 20 November 2024, at the age of 96. ==Publications==