[citation needed] In February 1945, as the end of World War II in Europe began, the family fled from the approaching Red Army to Naumburg an der Saale.

[5] Prior to 1960, Mahler was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the leftist students' association Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS).

[citation needed] After the attempted assassination of Rudi Dutschke in 1968, Mahler took part in the violent protests against the Springer Publishing House, for which he was arrested.

[11] After his return from Jordan, Mahler was arrested with fellow RAF members Ingrid Schubert, Brigitte Asdonk and Irene Goergens on 8 October 1970.

While the German courts noted a change in Mahler's political position in the mid-1980s,[8] he first gained attention for it at Rohrmoser's 70th birthday celebration on 1 December 1997.

[13] Mahler took little role in politics until 1998, when an article by him called Zweite Steinzeit ("Second Stone Age")[14] explaining his conversion to Völkisch ideas appeared in the right-wing paper Junge Freiheit.

[15] Mahler later underlined the spiritual side of his political beliefs, while attaching it to anti-semitism, arguing that: In the German people as free self-confidence, the unity of God and Man appears in the Folk-community knowing itself.

The government, citing accusations of Volksverhetzung ("hate speech") against the party, petitioned the court to allow them to seize Mahler's computer assets.

His passport was revoked for six months by the German authorities in January 2006 to prevent him attending the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran, Iran.

The Amtsgericht cited two comments made by Mahler to justify his disbarment: "The destruction of the Jews is an act of reason..." ("In der Vernichtung der Juden waltet Vernunft...") and "Billions of people would be ready to forgive Hitler if he had only murdered the Jews" ("Milliarden Menschen wären bereit, Hitler zu verzeihen, wenn er nur den Judenmord begangen hätte").

[21] In November 2007, Mahler was facing new Volksverhetzung charges stemming from an interview for Vanity Fair with Michel Friedman (CDU), a former vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

"[22] On 23 November 2007, the Amtsgericht in Cottbus sentenced Mahler to six months' imprisonment without parole for having given a Hitler salute when reporting to prison for a nine-month term the previous year.

[26] On 11 March a Potsdam court then sentenced the 73-year-old Mahler to an additional five years' imprisonment for Holocaust denial and banalization of Nazi war crimes.

[31] On 13 June 2017, Mahler was deported to Germany by Hungarian authorities; he was greeted by lawyers after landing in Berlin and transferred to a Brandenburg prison.

[33] According to an April 1979 review in The New York Times by Vincent Canby, Mahler "speaks eloquently about the roots of postwar radicalism, though he now disavows terrorism that, he says, has become no different from the ills that prompted the left's original frustration and dissent.

[citation needed] In the film Der Baader Meinhof Complex (2008), directed by Uli Edel, Mahler is played by the actor Simon Licht.

Mahler is the subject of the documentary Die Anwälte - Eine deutsche Geschichte (The Lawyers - A German History, 2009), directed by Birgit Schulz.