Free speech no longer exists in Germany

Germany has always had laws against Holocaust denialism, but authorities now go much further. Europe's largest country has effectively criminalized many right-wing views. Eugyppius explains.

Americans have no idea how bad the European war on free speech has become.

Last week, after writing about the insane arrest of Irish comedian Graham Linehan for violating British speech laws, I asked the Substacker who goes by the name Eugyppius for his take on the situation in Germany.

As many of you know, Eugyppius is a German academic.¹ During the pandemic our writing overlapped usefully. I tended to offer a scientific/medical perspective (why are these policies so stupid?), while he provided a bureaucratic/political view (why are these policies so inflexible, considering how stupid they are?).

—

(The truth, from every perspective. For pennies a day.)

—

I still don’t know Eugyppius’s real name, and I disagree with him (and many of you) on Ukraine, where I find his take overly cynical.

But he remains as smart and trenchant a writer as ever, and as concerned with the excesses and follies of the bureaucratic state — which is even more entrenched in Europe than here.

He has written repeatedly about individual speech prosecution cases in Germany, so I figured I’d ask him for his overall perspective on what’s happening there. I figured I’d use his take as a jumping-off point. But it was so comprehensive (while simultaneously measured and fair) that I’ve just decided to give it to you as he wrote it.

It is bracing, to say the least.

Europe in general and Germany in particular seem simply to have given up on the idea that sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. And yes, Germany’s history has left it with a deep fear where Holocaust denial and neo-Nazism might lead, but this crackdown goes far past those boundaries, as you’ll see from the specific examples he includes.

—

So, without further ado, here are the questions I posed to Eugyppius, and his answers. Both are unedited, except to remove one discussion he pegged as off-the-record.

My initial email, from Wednesday:

I want to follow up my piece today about the insanity in Britain with a piece about Germany. It feels like the attacks there are more politically directed (while in Britain they are more culturally oriented, at people who speak out against the transies or migrants - though the migrant issue is obviously political too).

In any case, three questions:

1) What are the three or four worst cases, from your point of view?

2) Has anyone actually had to pay fines and/or faced prison time? Not the threat of fines/prison or even an actual sentence issued, has anyone actually gone to jail?

3) Do you believe speech has actually been curtailed as a result of these policies?

—

And his answer, which arrived this morning:

I spent the last week on quasi-holiday from the internet, so I am still catching up.

1) There are many ways to define "worst." I would consider two axes, of ridiculousness and injustice. Scoring high on both would be the case of David Bendels:

German journalist sentenced to seven months of probation for a Twitter meme poking fun at the Interior Minister's lack of commitment to free speech

This is a journalist sentenced to probation for posting an obviously satirical meme. Scoring very high on the injustice axis, but only moderately on the ridiculousness axis (because there is so much competition), would be the case of Doris van Geul:

Pensioner convicted of incitement for posting negatively about migrants in the latest politically charged German speech prosecution

This is a retired woman of very modest means, who has been so heavily fined for quite mild migrant-critical Facebook posts that she will be paying monthly penalties until she is 93 years old.

Scoring very, very high on the ridiculousness axis but less so on the injustice axis is the case of a woman who was charged under our statute forbidding the reproduction of Nazi symbols, because she displayed a poster bearing an (authentic) image of Karl Lauterbach with his hand raised at an unfortunate angle, to make an argument about politically motivated speech crime prosecutions:

German prosecutors charge woman for reproducing Nazi symbols after she publishes an image of Health Minister Karl Lauterbach raising his arm at suspicious angle

The most absurd example so far – and really quite revealing about the nature of these prosecutions – is the case of the German YouTuber who is facing a fine of 16,000 Euros because prosecutors believe he said the phrase "Sieg Heil" during a livestream, when in fact he just garbled the German word for "quality" while noting the questionable nature of his wifi connection:

German YouTuber faces €16,000 fine for mispronouncing the word "quality" in the latest insane speech crime prosecution to hit the Federal Republic

(Apologies for links to my own work, many of these cases simply aren't described anywhere else in English as far as I know.)

—

(Germany: Great at soccer, not so great at free speech! Maybe they’ll arrest me for calling it soccer?)

—

2) Yes, all manner of people have paid fines, many thousands at this point. Most of these prosecutions work via Strafbefehle: the prosecutor gets the district to sign off on a kind of "summary judgment," to avoid the expense of trial. You get a letter in the mail ordering you to pay a stated fine. Most people will just pay and get on with their lives.

A minority of defendants have the gumption and/or the resources to object and demand a trial, and at this point some will try to involve the media. These are the cases you typically hear about. Your odds aren't great at trial; if you're convicted, you can appeal, where again your odds aren't that great.

People have also gone to jail, but that is less surprising in Germany, where for example Holocaust denial has been a crime punishable by prison for decades. You probably know the notorious cases of Ursula Haverbeck and Germar Rudolf, for example. I try to distinguish between these older cases, where state prosecutors acted with at least some restraint, and the post-Covid cases, where the NGO-driven reporting networks have resulted in these mushrooming absurdities… [one] straightforward example of a prison sentence would be the pensioner I wrote about here:

German pensioner receives 75-day prison sentence in latest speech crime scandal to hit the Federal Republic

.As far as I know – there's been very little reporting on this case – he just finished serving his 75-day sentence in August. He was fined for repeating the phrase "Alles für Deutschland," but he did not have enough money to pay. (The "Alles für Deutschland" prosecutions are a theme in themselves.

There are surely other examples, as prison becomes a remote possibility in any case where the court imposes a substantial fine and the defendant refuses to pay, or can't pay, or whatever.

—

3) Yes, these prosecutions have had a clear chilling effect. From my own perspective, the biggest threat is not so much the risk of a fine (though that's not great), or the risk of prison (which is, purely statistically, not that likely), but aggressive police investigative techniques, particularly the 6 a.m. police raid on your house to seize all of your electronic devices.

This tactic is used punitively for the mildest and most doubtful of speech offences, and pretty much every right-of-centre German with any kind of social media following lives under this constant threat. There's also the fact that vindictive prosecutors, once they have a target, will often mine that target's entire internet history for the purpose of stacking offences and arriving at the most punitive sentence possible.

This is particularly dangerous for people with a lot of content on the internet that is open to malicious out-of-context misinterpretation, and also for people like me, whose satire is increasingly incompatible with the way prosecutors and district courts now apply the German criminal code.

—

(I’m glad for the First Amendment. And with your help I’ll keep fighting for it.)

—

Again, you can find Eugyppius here. He’s well worth reading.

And if you’re headed to Germany (or Britain), be careful with those memes!

Big Karen is watching you.

1. He spent years in academia in the United States before returning to Germany during Covid.