′Nazi grandma′ Ursula Haverbeck sent to prison for holocaust denial

An 88-year-old woman known as the 'Nazi grandma' has been sentenced to two years in jail for denying the holocaust and inciting hatred. Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck was handed a two-year prison sentence after she lost her appeal to reverse a 10-month sentence she received earlier this year.

Earlier this year, Haverbeck was found guilty of sedition, the offence of inciting others to hatred and rebellion, after she published several articles in which she denied that the holocaust occurred in local newspaper Stimme des Reiches (Voices of the Reich).

She also wrote a letter to the mayor of Detmold, a city in northern Germany, in which she referred to an Auschwitz as a "lie" and and claimed that the concentration camp was not an extermination camp, but rather a work camp.

She denied that Nazis had gassed Jewish people to death, claiming that it was "not historically proven."

"The Holocaust is the biggest and longest lasting lie in history," Haverbeck said during a television interview when asked about the trial of former SS guard Oskar Groening.

In November, the district court of Verden sentenced her to 10 months in prison for holocaust denial and incitement. Haverbeck's lawyer argued that the sentence violated her freedom of expression and called for her to be acquitted.

The grandmother appealed the court's decision, but on Monday 29 August she was found guilty of eight counts of inciting the German people to holocaust denial and sentenced to two years in prison without parole.

Haverbeck's husband was involved in the national leadership of the Nazi party during the Second World War and the couple maintained strong ties with several right-wing groups before his death.

In 2000, Haverbeck met neo-Nazi lawyer Horst Mahler and shortly afterwards she became deputy director of revisionist group 'Society for the Rehabilitation of Those Persecuted for Refutation of the Holocaust', chaired by holocaust denier Bernard Schaub.