In the appeal process against the notorious Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck before the Berlin district court, the 93-year-old was sentenced to one year in prison on Friday.

The accused denied and denied the Holocaust, the court justified its verdict.

The trial was about Haverbeck's appeals against two previous prison sentences for hate speech from 2017 and 2020.

Both procedures were merged into an appeal process at the district court.

"You are not a Holocaust researcher, you are a Holocaust denier," the presiding judge said to the defendant.

"It's not knowledge you're spreading, it's poison." Haverbeck was "miles away from the historical truth" and "damaged the memories of millions of those who were murdered."

Haverbeck was sentenced to six months in prison by the Tiergarten district court in 2017 because she was said to have repeatedly denied the Holocaust at a public event in a Berlin restaurant the year before.

In 2020, the court sentenced Haverbeck to one year in prison for allegedly denying the Holocaust again in an interview published on the Internet in 2018.

"We won't do anything for you with words"

The 93-year-old spoke "in her own name" in both acts.

"That was her own conviction," the judge said on Friday.

The chamber asked itself whether it was really necessary to sentence a 93-year-old to imprisonment.

But the decision was "without alternative".

A suspended sentence was also out of the question.

"They are unstoppable," said the presiding judge.

"We won't do anything to you with words."

In the appeal process that began in mid-March, several witnesses were heard and videos were shown showing the two facts for which Haverbeck was convicted.

She had also been sentenced elsewhere in Germany and was imprisoned in Bielefeld for two and a half years between 2018 and 2020.

The Federal Constitutional Court had previously dismissed a constitutional complaint.

In the Berlin appeal process, the public prosecutor's office had demanded a prison sentence of one year and four months, with four months of the total sentence being considered to have already been served for legal reasons.

The defense pleaded for an acquittal or, if convicted, for a fine or suspended sentence.

An appeal against the judgment is possible.