Freedom of Science as a Fundamental Human Right

Source: https://codoh.com/library/document/freedom-of-science-as-a-fundamental-human-right/

 

By Germar Rudolf

November 1, 1994

 

Speech presented at a Frankfurt Student Fraternity in 1994.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished Presidium, dear brothers in color, dear guests!

 

If a Germar Rudolf is to say a few words today on the subject of academic freedom in our country, I know that he is not expected to give a Sunday Speech. But before the Working-day speech follows, a few fundamental questions on the subject must be discussed:

 

·  What is science?

 

·  Why should science be free?

 

·  Why does the freedom of science require the protection as a fundamental human right?

 

·  What are the limits to the freedom of science?

 

What Is Science?

 

Generally speaking, science is any investigation and its systematic presentation that can be verified by outsiders. Verifiability means that anyone can understand the investigation on the basis of defined conditions in experiments and logical conclusions. Furthermore, the source to which the investigator refers must be comprehensible. This means that conclusions based on documents or external scientific studies must be identified as such in such a way that the outsider can find the documents and publication references of the external studies. In addition, a scientific approach requires the inclusion of at least the most important existing scientific opinions and counter-opinions in the investigation, i.e. also a systematic treatment of known works on the same topic. Furthermore, a scientist must disclose the premises of his investigation, i.e. make a recognizable distinction between facts and value judgments, and point out the limits of his professional competence, unless this is already clear from the context of the publication.

 

This essentially corresponds to the self-definition of science. But how does our judiciary define science? The Federal Constitutional Court stated in a ruling on January 11, 1994:

 

“The protection of the fundamental right to scientific freedom depends neither on the correctness of the methods and results, nor on the soundness of the argumentation and evidence, nor on the completeness of the points of view and evidence on which a scientific work is based. Good and bad science, the truth and falsity of results can only be judged scientifically. […]

 

Freedom of science therefore also protects minority opinions as well as research approaches and results that prove to be erroneous or flawed. Unorthodox or intuitive approaches also enjoy the protection of this fundamental right. The only requirement is that it is science; this includes everything that can be regarded as a serious attempt to determine the truth in terms of content and form. […]

 

However, a work cannot be denied scientific character simply because it contains one-sidedness and gaps or takes insufficient account of opposing views. […] It is only removed from the realm of science if it fails to meet the requirements of science not only in detail or according to the definition of certain schools, but systematically. This is particularly the case when it is not directed towards the knowledge of truth, but merely gives preconceived opinions or results the appearance of scientific acquisition or verifiability.

 

The systematic suppression of facts, sources, views and results that call the author’s opinion into question can be an indication of this. On the other hand, it is not sufficient for a work to be disputed as scientific in intra-scientific controversies between different substantive or methodological directions.”

 

Our judiciary thus defines the concept of science very generously and much more broadly than science itself does, granting us a generous freedom in defining science.

 

Why Should Science Be Free?

 

Science is the basis of human knowledge and therefore the basis of all human life and action, which differs specifically from the life and action of animals. Science serves as the basis for decision-making at both individual and political level.

 

In order to be able to make decisions that conform to reality, scientific knowledge must be truthful.

 

This means that science must bring truth to light. Truth as the only guiding principle of science means that any other external influence (economic or political) must be excluded. Science must be kept free of such influences.

 

Why Does the Freedom of Science Require the Protection as a Fundamental Human Right?

 

Fundamental and human rights are rights of the individual vis-à-vis fellow human beings, organizations and above all: vis-à-vis the state.

 

The state (in its current holy trinity) poses the greatest potential threat to human rights due to its concentration of power, as there is no institution that could impose any kind of restraint on it.

 

The freedom of science is above all a right of the scientist against influences from the state, especially in areas of political or politically effective science (contemporary history, sociology).

 

What Are the Limits of Academic Freedom?

 

According to Article 5 paragraph 3 of our constitution, the freedom of research and science is not subject to any restrictions.

 

In general, however, fundamental rights can only be invoked as long as third parties are not impaired in their fundamental rights.

 

Case of Conflict: Holocaust Research

 

Question: Does a study that fulfills the formal criteria of scientific research but comes to the conclusion that the mass murder of the Jews in the Third Reich did not take place in the way described so far, or did not take place at all, violate the fundamental and human rights of third parties?

 

The answer of certain circles is: Yes, because these people have a right to have their suffering or that of their ancestors fully recognized. This also includes, and in particular, the Third Reich’s unique and heinous method of mass extermination, especially in gas chambers.

 

However, my answer to this question is: under no circumstances can such a research result violate the fundamental rights of others! Reasons:

 

1.     The restriction of the freedom of science can only refer to the methods of finding the truth, but never to the result of the scientific investigation. No one will deny that those who use unlawful or even inhuman methods to find the truth violate the fundamental rights of others. However, if the state wants to prescribe the results of science or prohibit other results, it is committing the very infringement of human rights that Article 5 (3) of the Basic Law is intended to protect against.

 

2.     No one has a right to a certain result of scientific research, not even the Jews. No one’s dignity can depend on where scientific truth is sought and found and where it is not.

 

3.     Whoever prescribes results for science kills science, because science can only create true knowledge if it is allowed to question everything and every result is possible in principle. It must therefore never be accepted that the search for truth is forbidden by powerful minorities.

 

4.     Anyone who abolishes scientific freedom proves that he can no longer defend himself argumentatively and thus admits that he is wrong.

 

The Real Reasons for the Abolition of Freedom of Science

 

Here are a few quotes from a competent source. The retired judge Rudolf Wassermann stated after the notorious judgment of the German Federal Supreme Court on the first verdict against Günter Deckert, head of Germany’s National-Democratic Party and interpreter of U.S. Holocaust revisionist Fred Leuchter during a speech the latter gave in Germany (for which Deckert was sentenced to a prison term):

 

“Anyone who denies the truth about the National Socialist extermination camps is abandoning the foundations on which the Federal Republic of Germany was built. This state is supposed to be a pugnacious democracy that defends itself when anti-democrats try to undermine it.” (Wassermann, “The judiciary has clarity”, Die Welt, April 28, 1994. p. 4)

 

Hence, anyone who has a different opinion on certain historical details is also exposed as an anti-democrat. This is about as logical as saying that it is colder at night than outside.

 

During the debate on tougher penalties for Holocaust revisionists, Dr. de With, a member of the Bundestag from Germany’s leftist Social-Democratic Party, was applauded by all parliamentary groups when saying:

 

“Anyone who plays down or denies the National Socialist mass murder, i.e. the Holocaust, must know that he is touching the foundations of democracy” (Dr. Hans de With, Member of Parliament, SPD parliamentary group on May 18, 1994 in the Bundestag, Bundestag minutes, p. 19,669).

 

The German daily Die Welt stated on the self-image of our society:

 

“Anyone who denies Auschwitz […] is also shaking the foundations of this society’s self-image” (March 16, 1994, p. 6)

 

At the end of 1993, Germany’s weekly Die Zeit cited the following reason why Holocaust deniers must be silenced by the judiciary and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution:

 

“The moral foundation of our republic is at stake.” (Dec. 31, 1993, p. 51)

 

The daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung was most explicit six days after the publication of the revised verdict against Günter Deckert:

 

“If Deckert’s [revisionist] view of the Holocaust were correct, the Federal Republic would be founded on a lie. Every presidential speech, every minute of silence, every history book would be a lie. By denying the murder of the Jews, he denies the legitimacy of the Federal Republic.” (Patrick Bahners, “Objective Selbstzerstörung”, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 15, 1994, p. 21)

 

The Green politician Joschka Fischer, after a conversation with German Federal President von Weizsäcker in 1987, reported that the raison d’être of the Federal Republic of Germany is also answered in a similar way at the very top of the political hierarchy, namely in the Office of the Federal President:

 

“[Federal President R. von Weizsäcker is] closer to the Greens in his understanding of the state than Kohl: not NATO, but Auschwitz as the raison d’être.” (Joschka Fischer, after a conversation with Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker, quoted from Der Spiegel No. 28/1987, p. 23).

 

And last but not least: In the judgment of the court of honor of my original student fraternity, which was composed of a respected, professionally experienced lawyer, my not yet legally binding exclusion from this Cartellverband fraternity was also justified, among other things, by the fact that the Holocaust was the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany. Anyone who questioned this would be violating the Cartellverband’s Patria principle on a massive scale.

 

If these voices are right, then the Federal Republic of Germany is not worth a dime, because a state that is based solely on a possibly untrue detail of contemporary history and has to defend it by all means cannot stand up to history.

 

But these voices are wrong, because the legitimacy of this democratic constitutional state is based on the one hand on the at least de facto consent of its citizens. Although the deletion of §146 of the Germany’s Basic Law [old version] in the course of the adoption of the Unification Treaty with the German Democratic Republic in 1990, which was in violation of the Basic Law and international law, finally prevented us Germans from accepting our constitution by vote, there should be no doubt today that this constitution would be accepted by the German people in an overwhelming majority. In democratic states, this at least de facto approval by the people is the basis of their existence. On the other hand, leading representatives of this state repeatedly and rightly emphasize in Sunday speeches that the inalienable human and international rights form the foundations on which the modern German state rests, even if it may be noted here that our state only ever seems to concern itself with international law when it works to its disadvantage. German rights and entitlements under international law, on the other hand, are generally given away.

 

Nowhere is it stated that the Holocaust forms the basis of the modern German state.

 

Anyone who claims otherwise is wrong, legally speaking. De facto, however, the Holocaust belief is the basis of power of the left-internationalist, liberal-extremist elites of the Federal Republic of Germany. They merely label the inquisitorial defense of their power base with the false label of state protection.

 

In defense of their position of power, these elites are prepared to do the following, among other things:

 

They sacrifice the independence of the judiciary. At the latest since the events surrounding the revised verdict against G. Deckert, even the last backwoodsman should be aware that there is no longer an independent judiciary in trials concerning issues of contemporary history. Whereas in the past, all evidence relating to the objective facts of a case was regularly and unlawfully rejected if the alleged events of the time were to be investigated, it is now openly enforced that the subjective facts of the case are no longer investigated either: Revisionists are in principle evil people with dishonest intentions and therefore to be sentenced without mercy.

 

They abolish the human rights to freedom of expression and freedom of science in decisive areas.

 

I can only think of Article 20 of our Basic Law, which gives each of us the right to resist those who want to abolish the free democratic basic order of our country.

 

Thank you for your attention!