Neo-Nazi’s ashes “mistakenly” buried on plot of Jewish musicologist

Church authorities managing a Brandenburg cemetery have admitted to a “terrible mistake” after the ashes of a prominent neo-Nazi were buried in the grave of a Jewish-born musicologist.

Henry Hafenmayer, a 48-year-old Holocaust denier who died of an undisclosed illness, was well-known among German neo-Nazis, some of whom attended his funeral. During his life, Hafenmayer served a prison sentence for penning a series of antisemitic screeds to public bodies in which he branded the Holocaust a “lie”, which is a criminal offence in Germany where Holocaust denial falls foul of a law against “incitement of the people”.

Hafenmayer’s ashes were buried in a grave that used to hold the remains of Prof. Max Friedländer, a specialist in German Lieder who taught at Harvard University in the 1910s. Though Friedländer converted to Protestantism, he was born to a Jewish family, a fact not lost on the far-right activists who attended Hafenmayer’s funeral. Among those attending the funeral was Horst Mahler, a founder of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group who later became a neo-Nazi.

The cemetery management explained that when a gravesite’s lease is not renewed after a “rest period” of ten to twenty years, the remains are removed and burial plots are reclaimed for new burials, but Friedländer’s headstone was still there because it was a listed monument.

In a statement, Christian Stäblein, a bishop at the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia, said: “The burial of a Holocaust denier in the grave of Max Friedländer is a terrible mistake and a harrowing process in view of our history. We have to see immediately whether and what we can undo.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia