Jürgen Graf (15 August 1951 – 14 January 2025) was a Swiss author, teacher and Holocaust denier. From August 2000 he was living in exile, later in his life in Russia, working as a translator, with his wife.

Background

Born in

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

, Graf studied

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

at the University of Basel; English, Romance and Scandinavian studies, and in 1979 completed his licentiate. He spent several years working as a school teacher teaching languages and later taught German at a

Taipei , nickname = The City of Azaleas , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Taiwan#Asia#Pacific Ocean#Earth , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country ...

school in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

. On his return to Basel, he worked as interrogator of

asylum seekers An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country, and makes in that other country a formal application for the right of asylum according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 14. A pers ...

at the receiving agency on the repurposed

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

cruise ship ''Basilea''. He described his experiences in his 1990 book ''The Ship of Fools'' (''Das Narrenschiff''), over which he was accused of

xenophobia Xenophobia (from (), 'strange, foreign, or alien', and (), 'fear') is the fear or dislike of anything that is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression that is based on the perception that a conflict exists between an in-gr ...

. By the early 1990s, Graf was a convert to

Holocaust denial Historical negationism, Denial of the Holocaust is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that asserts that the genocide of Jews by the Nazi Party, Nazis is a fabrication or exaggeration. It includes making one or more of the following false claims: ...

, and was introduced to the field by his friend and retired school teacher Arthur Vogt through the works of Serge Thion, Arthur Butz and Wilhelm Stäglich. During the 1990s, he published several Holocaust denial works, his first titled ''The Holocaust on trial: Eyewitness accounts versus natural laws'' (''Der Holocaust auf dem Prüfstand: Augenzeugenberichte versus Naturgesetze''), several of his later books co-authored with the Italian Holocaust denier Carlo Mattogno. Graf distributed his book to journalists and parliamentarians, establishing a reputation as a Holocaust denier. As the result, he was dismissed from his teaching position; he was later employed in a private school in Basel, teaching German to foreign students. Graf's publications eventually led Swiss authorities to prosecute him for violating Swiss anti-racism laws. Graf and his then-publisher, Gerhard Förster, were tried by a Swiss court in July 1998; Graf was sentenced to a substantial fine and 15 months imprisonment. He fled the country while awaiting his appeal, travelling through Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Turkey, ending in Iran, where a group of Iranian Holocaust deniers sheltered him in

Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...

. Graf subsequently relocated to Moscow, Russia, where he met and married a Belarusian woman in 2001. He lived and worked in Moscow as a translator until 2018.Jürgen Graf ist tot
Graf died on 14 January 2025, at the age of 73.

References

External links

1951 births 2025 deaths Swiss expatriates in Russia Swiss exiles Swiss people convicted of Holocaust denial Writers from Basel-Stadt University of Basel alumni {{Switzerland-bio-stub