The Chemnitz lawyer and co-founder of the right-wing extremist small party “Freie Sachsen”, Martin Kohlmann, was sentenced by the Chemnitz District Court on Tuesday for incitement to hatred. The court imposed a fine of 6,000 euros.
Statement on the Holocaust in the Chemnitz city council
Martin Kohlmann was accused of denying, in a speech to the Chemnitz City Council in October 2021, that there were gas chambers on the territory of the German Reich during the National Socialist era.
Kohlmann was reported for his Holocaust denial by a lawyer from Belgium who often works in Chemnitz. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
Already convicted of sedition
Two years ago, Kohlmann was sentenced to a fine of 2,100 euros for hate speech by the district court in Verden, Lower Saxony, for making a similar statement. At that time, as a defender of a former NPD city councillor, he had also denied the existence of gas chambers on the territory of the German Reich during the Nazi era.
After an appeal by Kohlmann, the Verden district court confirmed the verdict against the right-wing lawyer again in May 2022.