Karel Cornelia Constentijn Dillen (16 October 1925, Antwerp – 27 April 2007, Schilde

Schilde

Schilde is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Antwerp. The municipality comprises the towns of Schilde proper and 's Gravenwezel. On January 1, 2006 Schilde had a total population of 19,575. The total area is 35.99 km² which gives a population density of 544 inhabitants per km². It...

) was a Flemish

Flanders

Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

 and a Flemish

Flemish people

The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...

 nationalist. In 1977 he established the Vlaams Nationale Partij (Flemish National Party), which became Vlaams Blok

Vlaams Blok

The Vlaams Blok was a Belgian far-right and secessionist political party with an anti-immigration platform. Its ideologies embraced Flemish nationalism, calling for the independence of Flanders. From its creation in 1978, it was the most notable militant right wing of the Flemish movement. Vlaams...

 at the elections of 1978. He was president of the Vlaams Blok (later reformed as Vlaams Belang

Vlaams Belang

Vlaams Belang is a Belgian far-right political party in the Flemish Region and Brussels that advocates the independence of Flanders and strict limits on immigration, whereby immigrants would be obliged to adopt Flemish culture and language...

) until he appointed Frank Vanhecke

Frank Vanhecke

Frank Arthur Hyppolite Vanhecke started his career in Belgian politics as a student by joining the Jong Studentenverbond and later the Nationalistische Studentenvereniging. He gave up his membership of the Volksunie in 1977 after it acceded to a much-debated package of federal reforms...

 as his successor in 1996. Karel Dillen was a Member of the European Parliament

Member of the European Parliament

A Member of the European Parliament is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.When the European Parliament was first established,...

 between 1994 and 2004, and vice-chairman of the Technical Fraction of the European Right, together with among others Jean-Marie Le Pen

Jean-Marie Le Pen

Jean-Marie Le Pen is a French far right-wing and nationalist politician who is founder and former president of the Front National party. Le Pen has run for the French presidency five times, most notably in 2002, when in a surprise upset he came second, polling more votes in the first round than...

 and Franz Schönhuber

Franz Schönhuber

Franz Xaver Schönhuber was a German journalist and author. He gained fame as a founder and eventual chairman of the German Party The Republicans.-Career:...

.

Karel Dillen had a history of associating with far-right figures. Though he was not an active Nazi

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 collaborator

Collaborationism

Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...

 himself, he described himself as a "passive" collaborator. He also translated in 1951 the pamphlet Nuremberg ou la terre promise ("Nuremberg or the Promised Land"), a Holocaust denial

Holocaust denial

Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...

 book by Maurice Bardèche

Maurice Bardèche

Maurice Bardèche was a French essayist, literary and art critic, journalist, and one of the leading exponents of Neo-Fascism in post-World War II Europe...

. Afterwards, Dillen maintained regular contact with the author. The book states that the Nazi concentration camps were mock-ups built with the help of Hollywood

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

According to Paul Belien

Paul Belien

Paul Belien, born 1959, is a Flemish journalist and founder of the conservative-libertarian blog The Brussels Journal.Belien is both known as both a pro-American and a prolific writer and author...

, editor of the Brussels Journal, "Dillen came from a non-political background. His father, an Antwerp labourer, abandoned his wife and their two sons when Dillen was still a baby. He was raised by his mother. Neither he, nor his brother nor his mother were involved in any political activities at all during the war,..."