Gerhard Frey (politician)

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Gerhard Frey
Frey in 2009
Born	Gerhard Michael Frey (1933-02-18)18 February 1933 Cham, Weimar Republic
Died	19 February 2013(2013-02-19) (aged 80) Gräfelfing, Germany
Occupation	Business, Publishing
Spouse(s)	Regine Frey
Children	4 children

Gerhard Michael Frey (18 February 1933 – 19 February 2013)^[2] was a German publisher, businessman and politician. He was the chairman and main financial backer of the right-wing party Deutsche Volksunion, which he founded in 1971. He resigned as chairman in January 2009.^[3]

Biography[]

Gerhard Frey was born on 18 February 1933 in Cham. He studied law.^[4] In 1960 Frey received his PhD (Dr. rer. pol.) from the University of Graz, Austria. His dissertation was a study of the trade pattern between Austria and Germany.^[5] He was married to Regine Frey, with whom he had four children.^[3][6] His daughter Michaela (born 1965) is an attorney, his son Gerhard Jr. (born 1969) is a lawyer. Frey died on 19 February 2013, the day after his 80th birthday, in Gräfelfing near Munich.^[7]

The scholar Cas Mudde described Frey as "One of the most influential people in the German post-war extreme right scene" and a "multi-millionaire media czar who owns and publishes several newspapers".^[8]

Frey took control of the far right Deutschen Soldaten-Zeitung in 1959, later renamed National Zeitung, and raised the paper’s circulation from 27,500 in 1958 to 131,000 in 1967. The paper frequently published historical revisionist and anti-Israel articles.^[9][10] In 1967 it used the term desk murderer (Schreibtischtäter) referring to people who support Israel as, in its view, they thereby take the risk to become accomplices in crimes committed there.^[11]

Frey has been described as rarely generous, except at his party functions where he hosted David Irving, whom he paid generously and provided a hired luxury car for.^[12] A large amount of advertising in National Zeitung were for Frey's other businesses, thus more money than usual went back to Frey. Such businesses included Deutsche Reisen, a travel service, and the Deutsche Buchdienst, selling books, medals and flags.^[13] Frey's party, the DVU, was described as the "Frey-Party" because of its financial dependency on him.^[14] The Irish Times, after the party's success in the 1998 Saxony-Anhalt state elections, described the DVU as "less a political party than the dangerous plaything of a millionaire", without any real party structure. At the time, Frey's personal fortune was estimated to be in excess of DM 500 million.^[1]

Frey enjoyed good relations with some conservative politicians like Alfred Seidl,^[15] interior minister of Bavaria 1977-78, with European far-right and right wing leaders like Jean-Marie Le Pen and Vladimir Zhirinovsky but his relationship with other German far-right leaders was less friendly as they feared his financial power could overwhelm them.^[16]

References[]

Bibliography[]

• Atkins, Stephen E. (2004). "The Togliatti amnesty". Encyclopedia of Modern Worldwide Extremists and Extremist Groups. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 100. ISBN 978-0313324857. gerhard frey dvu.
• Mudde, Cas (2002). The Ideology of the Extreme Right. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-6446-3.

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gerhard Frey.

• (in German) Official Site of the National Zeitung