Gottfried Küssel

Gottfried Küssel (born 10 September 1958) is an Austrian far-right political activist who also gained some notoriety in Germany. He has been a leading figure in neo-Nazism and Holocaust denial since the 1970s.

Early years Born in Vienna, Küssel first became involved in politics in 1976 when he became a member of Aktion Neue Rechte, a German New Right organisation, and by his admission joined the NSDAP/AO the following year. In this role he continued to be a public face of neo-Nazism whilst also organising military training for both Austrian and German activists. Küssel would claim that Kühnen had named him his successor on his deathbed. His public engagements included a controversial appearance on the American new programme Nightline during which he called Adolf Hitler the greatest man in German history and publicly denied the Holocaust, as well as an interview for Tele 5 in which he called for the re-registration of the Nazi Party as a legal political party. whilst four of those detained after a letter bomb attack on such an establishment in Vienna in January 1992 were high-profile VAPO members or supporters (although Küssel himself was not arrested in connection with this incident). Küssel had played a leading role in helping to establish neo-Nazi cells in the former East Germany in the immediate aftermath of German reunification.

Imprisonment In 1992, along with his ally Klaus Kopanski, Küssel was arrested at his Vienna apartment and charged again with Nazi revivalism. Found guilty the following year by the Regional Court in Vienna, he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. Küssel's imprisonment was followed by a number of bombings carried out by neo-Nazi militants using home-made bombs as a protest against the sentence. He was released from prison in 1999, receiving an early release for good behaviour.

Subsequent activity Although no longer in an official leadership position, Küssel has continued to be a prominent figure on the far right and has been a regular speaker at a number of neo-Nazi events, often alongside his long-term collaborator . In February 2005 he was fined €360 for possessing illegal weapons after he was found to own a number of daggers and bayonets, which contravened a weapons ban placed on him in 1982. He was arrested again in 2010 after giving the Hitler salute in a Vienna bar and attacking its Venezuelan-born female owner with an umbrella.

In 2011 he was arrested in connection with investigations into , an Austrian neo-Nazi blog and website and on 12 December that same year he was publicly indicted for his involvement in the initiative. The trial was due to get underway in May 2012 but was twice delayed due to concerns over the jury.

When the trial finally got under way Küssel was found guilty of breaching the Verbotsgesetz 1947, which bans any attempt to revive Nazism. Presiding Judge Martina Krainz noted the importance of the internet in disseminating extremist information and due to this, as well as Küssel's status as "a leading figure in the extreme-right scene" with several earlier convictions, she sentenced him to nine years' imprisonment.