German authorities claim they have apprehended a notorious elderly neo-Nazi and taken her to prison to begin serving her sentence for Holocaust denial.

Police and prosecutors told the dpa news agency Ursula Haverbeck, an 89-year-old grandmother, was picked up at her home in the town of Vlotho in central Germany.

Haverbeck was convicted of incitement last year in Verden state court and sentenced to two years in prison for denying the Holocaust, a crime in Germany.

She was supposed to report to prison last week but vanished, prompting a search for her. It was not immediately clear when she returned home.

“After the convict failed to report to the relevant penal institution within the deadline, prosecutors in Verden on May 4, 2018 issued an order to execute the sentence and have charged police with its implementation,” German news outlet DW quoted prosecutors as saying.

German newspaper Westfalen-Blatt reported Haverbeck’s home, in central Germany, appeared abandoned with uncollected mail pooling at the property’s front door.

file photo Ursula Haverbeck, accused of hate speech, arrives in the court room of the District Court in Detmold for a appeal hearing, Germany. (AP) (AP)

Haverbeck has repeatedly said the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland was simply a work camp and has been convicted several times, but had avoided prison due to lengthy appeals.

As well as sharing her anti-Holocaust views in right-wing magazine Stimme des Reiches (Voice of the Empire) Haverbeck and her late husband Werner Georg Haverbeck, founded the right-wing education facility Collegium Humanum in 1963. Werner was an active member of the Nazi party.

The centre was established as a “folk school for the environment and protection of life”. It was banned in May 2008.

It is against German law to deny the Holocaust. Breaking such a law can carry a jail term of up to five years.