A man shared a poster with politicians in the “Godfather style” on Facebook. The Federal Criminal Police Office took action. The district court saw the “limits of freedom of expression” exceeded – and sentenced him to 900 euros. The public prosecutor’s office still didn’t think that was enough.
In 2012, Gertrud Höhler published a book about the then Chancellor Angela Merkel. It was called: The Godmother. At the time, the journalist warned against Merkel’s restructuring of Germany. It didn’t take long to establish that the term “godmother” referred less to a godfather than to Mario Puzo’s famous novel and its film adaptation; Höhler insinuated that she had her hand on the puppet nets, and everyone knew what she meant.
A poster takes up a similar idea, albeit much less subtly. We find the same hand pulling the strings from the novel and the film, but underneath is the title “The Liars”. Behind it, Olaf Scholz, Christian Lindner, Nancy Faeser, Annalena Baerbock, Cem Özdemir, Karl Lauterbach, Annalena Baerbock, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Ursula von der Leyen pose in the suggestion of a mafia clan.
Where a film poster would normally name the producers, actors and director, there are the less than flattering descriptions: contemptuous, disrespectful, greedy, dishonourable, deceitful, corrupt, indecent, senile and many more. Above the heads is the sentence “Their plan: to destabilise a country, divide the people and drag them to ruin”.
The collage is therefore in the context of other “defamatory posters” of the past that had legal consequences. For example, two posters critical of the Green Party in Bavaria. The artistry and subtlety of these anti-advertising vehicles can certainly be debated. However, if you don’t blindly browse the Internet, you will find not only similar, but also more banal and defamatory memes – on all sides of the political spectrum.
One gets the impression that the skin of politics has become thinner rapidly over the last two decades. There is no other explanation for why the public prosecutor’s office took action against the ruling elite for this “lese majeste” offense. The “Central Reporting Office for Criminal Content on the Internet of the Federal Criminal Police Office” noticed a Facebook post with this graphic. It sounds like something from an exaggerated film where you end up being sued for trivialities.
You think you’re in exactly that situation when you read: the man who posted the picture was sued for a 900 euro fine for insulting public figures. In the land of Nazi sluts and dog breeds, it’s suddenly infamous to depict the traffic light coalition, the President of the European Commission or the Federal President in a meme. Not only a new sensitivity, which the Greens in particular, who are portraying themselves as victims, have discovered for themselves, but also a double standard can be grasped here.
The climax of the event: The 69-year-old “perpetrator”, who had shared the other person’s post in March 2023 – and is therefore not even the author of the collage – was accused by the Biberach District Court of having exceeded the “limits of freedom of expression”. The limits of freedom of expression in Baden-Württemberg are apparently so narrow that they barely allow breathing. In the green state, the cartoonists should soon change course if this becomes a precedent.
People like to look back on the Middle Ages and the early modern period with a sense of mockery. In the wake of some of the pressure from the times of the Reformation disputes, people are used to much more vulgar things, whether against the Pope, Luther or the German bishops and princes (the only thing they did not bother to caricature was the emperor, who after all stood for the majesty of the empire). Much of what today’s Puritans mock would have been laughed at by printers and engravers between 1500 and 1800. Lèse majesté, as we know it today, is more of a modern thing, because a clever printer who gets his libel out to people somewhere in Augsburg is not something you can easily catch. The Spanish Inquisition burned a considerable number of its victims as mere leaflets on an empty pyre “in effigy”.
The nightmare that Weber and Tolkien had predicted is different, namely the bureaucratic machinery in which every fingerprint on the Internet can be tracked; the establishment of a “Central Reporting Office for Criminal Content on the Internet of the Federal Criminal Police Office” alone speaks for itself. The Kafkaesque court gave the poor wretch, who had to justify his Internet post, high credit for identifying himself on the Internet using his real name! The Internet of anonymity is dead, and the authorities are celebrating it. The SWR writes:
“According to the court, the defendant’s insight and the fact that he has no previous convictions and posted with his identity open had a positive effect on the sentence.”
This is also a form of education: make yourself known everywhere and admit your mistake of lèse majesté, then the fine will only be 900 instead of 1,200 euros. Incidentally, that was the actual sentence that the public prosecutor wanted to see. The court objected that the defendant had not yet erased his shameful act.
A clear warning: another incident like this and the death camp of tolerance is on the agenda. Do you think this is a South Park fantasy? After a British woman was sentenced to “diversity courses” in the United Kingdom, anything can happen. So be warned: do not share this post in public under any circumstances.
— Luparus Ω (@Jagdfrevler) August 13, 2024
