Former German Justice Minister Herta Däubler-Gmelin: Iranian Martyrs Reflect the Spirit of the German Anti-Nazi Resistance

Staff Writer3 hours ago
Former German Justice Minister Herta Däubler-Gmelin: Iranian Martyrs Reflect the Spirit of the German Anti-Nazi Resistance
On April 10, 2026, at an international conference held near Paris,

Former German Justice Minister Prof. Dr. Däubler-Gmelin addresses an international conference on the execution of political prisoners on April 10, 2026
Written by
Dr. Masumeh Bolurchi

On April 10, 2026, at an international conference held near Paris, former German Minister of Justice Prof. Dr. Herta Däubler-Gmelin offered a profound tribute to the fallen heroes of the Iranian Resistance. Drawing powerful historical parallels, she compared the struggle against the mullahs’ “killing machine” to the dark final days of the Nazi regime in April 1944. She emphasized that just as the German resistance fighters like Dietrich Bonhoeffer are today honored as pillars of democracy while their executioners are forgotten, the martyrs of the Iranian Resistance will one day be the celebrated foundation of a free Iran.

Dr. Däubler-Gmelin also critiqued current international dynamics, warning that aggressive rhetoric and external military threats could inadvertently aid the regime’s survival. She contrasted the “responsible and prudent” leadership of NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi with the “conceited” and “insensitive” pronouncements of Reza Pahlavi, whose so-called transformation plan she dismissed as a document tailored to political sponsors rather than the Iranian people.

The excerpts of Prof. Dr. Herta Däubler-Gmelin follow:

Dear President-elect Rajavi, dear friends, ladies and gentlemen here in this room and in the Ashraf in Albania, thank you so much for your impressive, admirable speech honoring the fallen heroes and all those freedom fighters whose pictures we have seen. And we know quite well that there are even more we are mourning today.

Let me say it’s a great honor to be here together with you, even though it is a day of mourning at first. But I’d like to pass to you all the greetings of our friends, German friends, Ambassador Rückert, who regrets, who deeply regrets that he could not be here and speak to you in person, but he sends you all of his greetings.

Ladies and gentlemen, today my heart is, I’m sure your hearts as well, full of sorrow. We all are mourning the deaths of friends, resistance fighters, wonderful persons. We have seen the pictures and a lot of them, they have the age of my grandson. And we all know quite well what this means. Every age, young people who have their lives before them and now it’s gone.

And we know quite well they were no people with any evil, but they were freedom fighters, they were heroes, and they died for the struggle for a free and democratic Iran. And they have been murdered by the criminal mullah regime. We all, and let me underline this, we can feel with the families and the relatives, and we feel the grief of their friends.

And of course, we admire their bravery, their loyalty and commitment to the values of freedom, rule of law, and improvement for the situation for the Iranian people, Iran in their cherished homeland. And for me, as you know, I’m a lawyer and have been that all my life, it is an additional injustice what they had to suffer. Imprisonment, death cell, in solitary confinement, torture, and now killed by the appalling murder machine.

That’s why our hearts are full of sadness. And dear President Rajavi and dear friends, I’m sure it’s not only sadness, but it is anger and scorn to those who are responsible for this horrors. And we have to say that they are accountable for the murders of this young men, of this men and women, risking and losing their lives over and over again in demonstrations that have been bashed down, brutally beaten, clubbed down by the mullah regime.

And they were and are accountable for jailing and torturing the brave members, supporters of resistance, and they are, well, accountable for this killing machine. And this killing machine is fed by people who cynically call themselves justices, members of a justice system, but they are simply agents and tools of this criminal mullah regime.

So our hearts and minds are full of scorn against those people, powerful politicians, religious and military leaders who are accountable for the suffering. But today again, I think we all demand and I think we can predict, as you just pointed out, these criminals, these mullahs, politicians, military or justices as they falsely call themselves, they will have their trial one day. They will be brought to court in a free and just societies that these heroes were fighting for, this society which you are fighting for.

And I deeply believe and know that this will be reality in a future time, in a society in a law-abiding, democratic and rule of law state of Iran. Where does this confidence come from? It’s not only because I know what you are feeling and what you are saying and what you are struggling for, here or in the Ashraf in Albania. You know, I’m German and I’m interested in our history. Not only in the good sides, but in the dark sides as well. I think this is necessary, and it’s necessary for every generation, for the younger generation simply to make sure that history in other versions doesn’t repeat itself.

And in those dark ages, we have some parallels which I want to tell you a bit about that. In the last days of this criminal Nazi regime in April 1944, the crazy and ideologically blinded, but alas powerful leaders also speeded up their killing machine at that time concerning the Holocaust and concerning the murdering of some of the most shining lights of our resistance movement. There were resistance movements, and we have to cherish that.

And perhaps you will have heard some of the names of these resistance heroes as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Hans von Dohnanyi or Georg Elser, wonderful persons. They were heroes like those and very similar to those whose pictures we have seen, whose death we are mourning today. And I can tell you that eventually, years later, after we have to confess very painfully efforts some frustration, we can say that quite a lot of the accountable, contentious criminal murders were prosecuted and sentenced. Not only in Nuremberg, but as well those guys who murdered these shining lights I spoke about.

And this is the reason why I wanted to mention that. These murdered heroes of the resistance, they are remembered. They are cherished, they are honored, and they are honored pillars of our free, democratic and rule of law society. We can see that in every town, there are streets, buildings, memorials bearing their names. And so the generations are remembered of that what they wanted, what they were fighting for, and what they were murdered for. The murderers are not known anymore. The heroes are. And they will be, and this I think is a good thing.

And I am convinced that your brave heroes we are grieving today, they will be remembered and cherished in the same way. Ladies and gentlemen, dear Mrs. Rajavi, dear friends, in these days, of course, everyone, we as well, are looking to the situation in Iran and equally to the poor people in Lebanon. I especially know this tortured country. I’m at the board of a school in Bekaa Valley, and every day we get the crucial information about what is going on. They are suffering from bombs, drones, rockets, killing them, hurting them, bring destruction to their houses and making them leave their houses and refugees.

We know quite well that war destroys and kills. And this is why the UN charter and the Rome Statute strictly ban, especially aggression and aggression war. And this is why the UN is binding every initiative named Responsibility to Protect and possibly to be, let’s say, applied against murderous regimes, but they are binding these tools exactly and bindingly to an international resolutions. You see, this is necessary just to avoid that one powerful station thinks they are above the law, which we can see at the moment.

We are sadly realizing that there are powerful leaders without morals who do not care for international law, and we all feel this has to come to an end. This is what we have to consider and to consider very heavily. We can see that in Ukraine, we can see what Putin’s criminal aggression towards Ukraine brings, brings misery, destruction to the people, and full of my admiration we can see that they are not broken by this. After four years, this is quite a time.

I think it’s additionally most important to create a path to end the mullah horrors and give the people of Iran the opportunity to build a free Iran. This must be a part of the negotiation, and I hope, no, I’m convinced one day this can be found and this will be found. In this context, let me say that I deeply welcome your comments on the Wednesday announcement of the truce, Mrs. President Rajavi. I think it was a responsible, a wise and a very balanced, responsible and prudent statement. Thank you so much.

And together with the 10-point program containing really important issues for a new democratic Iran this could be a valuable tool for the useful and successful negotiations. I think we have to try to get these documents into the negotiations, and I do not know how to manage that, but perhaps we could talk about this as well. And I want to know and to add in this context that we all can see what a contrast to the big mouth and insensitive pronouncement of this Mr. Pahlavi this statement, well, constitutes.

Well, you see, I’ve read his so-called transformation plan, which is not a transformation plan, but a very conceited document whose political intentions and morals seem to adapt to those of his political backers and political sponsors. Well, let me add, I think that if Mr. Pahlavi comes to the foreign committee of the EU Parliament, the members will realize this. And I think then it’s okay that they realize that because in Europe this has to be made a bit more public than it is today.

Honorable President, dear friends, the days of mourning is are also a day of determination and a day of confirming that the necessary fighting for a free and democratic Iran is going on, has to continue. That must be the aim not only that of the democratic resistance movement as yours who surely will have to improve their efforts to cooperate and join forces with other groups as you just pointed out. This has to be the objective of the democratic politicians in other states as well, and we, your guests coming from EU countries, I think we have to remind our governments to keep exactly that in mind. That I think we owe to the brave people in Iran and especially to the heroes we honor today.

Thank you so much.

Staff Writer3 hours ago
Arab-Islamic Committee in Defence of Ashraf
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