Recently I wrote about the baffling rulings by German courts concerning charges of anti-Semitism. But those rulings pale in the face of this decision by Saxony-Anhalt’s Supreme Court:
Saxony-Anhalt’s Supreme Court handed a lenient sentence to Hans Püschel on Wednesday, a Holocaust denier. Chief Judge Gerhard Henss has overturned other far-right convictions for slanderous and defamatory statements, including Holocaust denial in other instances. The 67 years old Hans Püschel is a member of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) and former mayor of Krauschwitz, a municipality made of smaller villages in East Germany along the borders with Poland. Püschel was elected in 2010, but resigned in 2013 amidst outcry on his views on the holocaust, which he published on line. He said witness accounts of Auschwitz-Birkenau were “lies” and that the camp in Poland really was a sports ground equipped with a hospital and “60 doctors” for inmates.Püschel also compared Nazi holocaust victims with “dead Germans,” without specifying whether he referred to Nazis or others: “If we put a thousand hunks of concrete in the middle of Berlin for murdered Jews, then at least 3,000 belong there alongside them for murdered Germans.” He also spoke of the “devastating influence of Jews and Zionism” in Germany today. To this day, he stands by these views.
The ex-lawyer blogger nobody has reprinted a poem published by Püschel in which he calls the Holocaust a "fairy tale" (" S’ist eine Mär, wie’s Lied der Nibelungen"). Nobody also points to the relevant paragraphs of the German Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch) that Püschel repeatedly violated. Here they are in English translation:
(3) Whosoever publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or downplays an act committed under the rule of National Socialism of the kind indicated in section 6 (1) of the Code of International Criminal Law, in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding five years or a fine.
(4) Whosoever publicly or in a meeting disturbs the public peace in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims by approving of, glorifying, or justifying National Socialist rule of arbitrary force shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine.
(5) Subsection (2) above shall also apply to written materials (section 11(3)) of a content such as is indicated in subsections (3) and (4) above.
(6) In cases under subsection (2) above, also in conjunction with subsection (5) above, and in cases of subsections (3) and (4) above, section 86(3) shall apply mutatis mutandis.
Püschel's repugnant speech would be protected in the United States under the First Amendment. In general, I'm against any restrictions on freedom of expression. But as long as these laws exist in the Federal Republic they must be enforced - and enforced uniformly. Just last year an elderly German woman - Ursula Haverbeck - was sentenced by a court in Hamburg to prison for Holocaust denial. What Hans Püschel has done is far worse.
These political persecutions must end.
It is not the state's affair to enforce historical knowledge.
But if it continues like this, I see a good chance that the most virulent supporters of this republic will be persecuted just as thoroughly the day this system ends.
Posted by: Zyme | August 10, 2016 at 01:53 PM
You mean like the officials of the Weimar Republic were persecuted (in some cases murdered) when that system ended? By "system" do you mean parliamentary democracy?
Posted by: David | August 10, 2016 at 02:12 PM
Nothing lasts forever is what I meant.
To think otherwise is to be very naive, keeping in mind this is what most people living in systems long gone thought as well.
Posted by: Zyme | August 10, 2016 at 04:46 PM