Manfred Roeder

Manfred Richard Kurt Roeder (6 February 1929 – 30 July 2014) was a German lawyer and neo-Nazi terrorist. Roeder, a Holocaust denier, was described as "one of West Germany's most important neo-Nazis", known for his open support of Nazi Germany and being responsible for a series of bombings targeting foreigners and Holocaust exhibits, most notably the 1980 Hamburg arson attack. He is considered an early representative of the Reichsbürger movement.

Early life Roeder was born in Berlin-Friedenau to an Evangelical family. His father was an engineer and later a SA-Obersturmführer.

In January 1945, Roeder enlisted for service in the Volkssturm and participated in the Battle of Berlin before his unit surrendered on 30 April to avoid capture by the Red Army. In 1947, he finished his Abitur at . Initially intending to become a theatre critic, Roeder studied German studies and philosophy for two semesters in Berlin before switching to legal science at the University of Münster and University of Bonn. During his student years, he joined the and became active with Moral Re-Armament (MRA) in 1950. Roeder undertook his legal clerkship at Hamm Higher Regional Court on 1 September 1954, but dropped out of his training to work freelance for MRA. In December 1961, he continued his studies and after completion of his second state exam, he was employed as a paralegal at US-Headquarters Command in Berlin-Dahlem between June 1966 and July 1969. He received his lawyer's licence on 23 January 1967.

Career

Early career In 1965, Roeder joined the CDU and was active in an Evangelical church council. In 1967, he founded Demokratische Initiative, intended as a conservative counter-movement to the left-wing Außerparlamentarische Opposition. In 1969, he moved to Bensheim, where he joined Reichenberg Fellowship. He married his wife Gertrud, the daughter of his former Napola school principal, the same year.

Roeder's radical right-wing ideology was first noted by the East German Stasi in 1966, but an effort to monitor him was abandoned by the beginning of the 1970s, though a detailed building plan of his residence remained in the archives. Media labelled Roeder a "politclown" for his far-fetched ventures, which included writing letters to foreign leaders such as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, for help in "restoring the Reich", or Brazilian president Ernesto Geisel, to plead for the release of detained Nazi war criminal Gustav Wagner, with the reason as "to not sully [his] soldier's honor". With fellow Holocaust denier and ex-SS officer Thies Christophersen, Roeder also founded two self-proclaimed "Reichstags" in Regensburg and Flensburg.

Roeder moved to Schwarzenborn, where he lived for the remainder of his life at a compound he named the "Reichshof". He held meetings with other members of the Völkisch movement at the property in the decades that followed. Also in 1971, Roeder briefly served as the attorney of Rudolf Hess and made public efforts to have him released from prison until Hess' suicide in 1987. For his involvement with the Ayatollah, Roeder was nicknamed the "Brown Khomeini" by his followers.

From February to August 1980, the ("German Action Groups"), a neo-Nazi organisation founded by Roeder, carried out bombings on buildings that housed foreign workers and asylum seekers, as well as Holocaust memorial sites. In August 1980, the Deutsche Aktionsgruppen attacked a refugee accommodation in Hamburg with molotov cocktails, killing two Vietnamese boat people. Within the following month, the group effectively disbanded following the arrest of all its known members. Because of his integral role in a terrorist organisation Roeder was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 1982. Roeder was released in 1990,

Later life In 1997, the British current affairs program Panorama reported that in 1994, Roeder had appeared, by invitation, as a speaker at the Bundeswehr Führungsakademie, the general staff college of German military officers. and the instatement of Rear-Admiral Rudolf Lange as his replacement, with the goal of restoring the good reputation of the academy. Chief of Staff Norbert Schwarzer claimed that he was unaware of Roeder's status as a neo-Nazi and that Roeder had been recommended to him by an employee of the academy.

In 1996, Roeder, together with other far-right extremists, perpetrated an attack on an exhibition in Erfurt detailing the role of the Wehrmacht in Nazi Germany, for which he was charged with property damage and fined DM-4,500. The trial was attended by several of his supporters, including Uwe Böhnhardt and Uwe Mundlos, who later created the National Socialist Underground militant group which perpetrated several xenophobic murders between 2001 and 2010.

In 1997, Roeder stood as the candidate of the far-right NPD in Stralsund in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern during the parliamentary elections, promoting himself as "Chancellor alternative 1998", but was unsuccessful.

After being sentenced to prison by the state courts of Schwerin and Rostock for Volksverhetzung (incitement to hatred) and for other crimes, he was given a further ten months in September 2004 by the state court of Frankfurt for contempt of the state. On 12 May 2005, he began a prison sentence in Gießen, but he was released shortly after on health grounds.

Death Roeder died on 30 July 2014 at the age of 85. A year before his death, Roeder's house was bought by the daughter of Australian Holocaust denier Michèle Renouf and remained in use as a neo-Nazi meeting grounds as late as 2018.

Writings (excerpt) Newsletter from Manfred Roeder from the Dieburg prison (2003)