The notorious Holocaust denier died in Germany where he was deported and jailed after pissing off much of North America – and the world for that matter.

BAD WILDBAD, BADEN-WÜRTTEMBERG, GERMANY – Ernst Zündel, the Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi activist that was deported back to Germany from Canada where he spent five years in prison for Holocaust denial has died there at the age of 78.

According to CTV News, Ingrid Rimland Zündel said in a statement that her husband died in his childhood home in the Black Forest, a German mountain range where he was born in 1939. “Details are still sketchy, but I know that his sister, Sigrid, was with him when it happened,” she wrote. “She found him unconscious and called the ambulance. He was pronounced dead shortly thereafter,” she added. “Apparently it was a heart attack.”

Zündel never returned to Canada where he emigrated to in 1958 at the age of 19. Working as a graphic artist, it was in the 1970s when he embarked on publishing anti-Semitic books and tracts via his company Samisdat Publishers. Among his publications were the pamphlets “The Hitler We Loved and Why” and “Did Six Million Really Die? The Truth At Last” by Richard Verrall of the British National Front writing under the pen name Richard E. Harwood. Both were significant documents of the Holocaust denial movement. He was put on trial twice in the 1980s for spreading false news via his publications, which violated the criminal code. He was convicted in 1988 but the conviction was overturned on appeal in 1992. The trials made him a cause celebe among neo-Nazis and he continued his activities from within his heavily fortified townhouse on Carlton Street in Toronto. That home was nevertheless the target of an arson attack in 1995 that resulted in $400,000 in damage.

In 1997, Zündel’s second wife, who divorced him earlier, testified against him while he was under investigation by the Canadian Human Rights Commission for inciting hatred against Jews via his infamous website Zundelsite.org. Before they could release their findings however, Zündel, married for a third time to Ingrid Rimland moved to Tennessee, vowing never to return to Canada. US officials however sent him back to Canada in 2003 for violation of immigration rules and subsequently, Canada detained him and made plans to deport him back to Germany where there was an outstanding warrant for incitement of the masses. Although he lived in Canada for 40 years, he never gained Canadian citizenship and was still a citizen of Germany. Zündel fought the deportation, claiming refugee status, and neo-Nazis around the world campaigned to allow him to stay in Canada, but Canadian officials considered him a high risk because of associations with Aryan Nations and other hate groups. On March 1, 2005, Zündel was sent back to Germany where he was immediately arrested and charged with inciting racial hatred. Less than a year later, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. He was released in 2010.

In March, the Department of Homeland Security ruled Zündel to be inadmissible to the United States, which he petitioned to do to be reunited with his elderly wife. On June 15, attorney Barbara Kulazska, who represented Zundel, died of lung cancer.