Germany nowadays is best understood through the lens of its judicial system.
In automn 2024 the American citizen and Berlin-based author CJ Hopkins was found guilty in an appeal before the Berlin Court of Appeal for tweets showing parts of his book cover - after being acquitted at first instance; the public prosecutor’s office had appealed. Due to political pressure or deep legal conviction?
The author had used “prohibited propaganda material”. The Berlin judge ruled that showing a corona mask with a barely visible swastika taken from the cover of an unmistakable book entitled “The New Normal Reich” was prohibited and also trivialized the Nazi regime.
The temptation of political justice
This is a surprising twist in a case in which the judge wanted to show the lower court how little totalitarian Germany was, because he was acquitted even though what he said was “ideological drivel”. A pinch of educational jurisprudence ended the proceedings. Now, according to the lower court’s way of thinking, the Court of Appeal showed exactly what the lower court wanted to refute: That Germany is on the road to totalitarianism. The German judiciary is slipping into a dilemma of its own making.
Let’s take a look at the core issue, which the Federal Constitutional Court must consider through the lens of fundamental rights, i.e. freedom of expression, Grundgesetz/Constitution Art. 5 para. 1 and freedom of art, Art. 5 para. 3. Has the importance and scope of fundamental rights been disregarded by the sentence of a fine (which must now be determined by the lower court)? The Federal Constitutional Court examines the violation of specific constitutional law and is not a super appellate court, i.e. it does not deal with simple legal questions.
The main point of the condemnation seems to be that Hopkins did not clearly express his rejection of the Nazi regime through his tweets with a picture and the Nazi comparison. He had only criticized the corona measures, but not the Nazi regime. This interpretation is one-sided and logically incomprehensible. After all, the court recognizes that he criticizes the government’s corona measures, i.e. evaluates them negatively. In this context, how is the use of the swastika meant to be anything other than an amplification of criticism through a symbol? Why should he somehow make his harsh criticism look friendlier by using the swastika in a neutral way? The deepest rejection of Nazi methods must be assumed, otherwise the statement makes no sense.
Hopkins also writes in the tweet about masks as a means of conforming to ideology and states that this is their only function and has been historically. “It always has been”. How can we read from these sentences in conjunction with the hashtag “masks are not a mild means” that ideological conformity has ever been a positive thing? And then in the Nazi state of all places?
ADVERTISEMENT
Looking for the easiest way to buy Bitcoin and store it yourself? The Relai appatuszek) is the No. 1 crypto start-up and No. 2 of all fintech start-ups in Switzerland. Here you can buy Bitcoinatuszek) in just a few steps and also set up savings plans. Nobody has access to your Bitcoin except you. With the referral code MILOSZ you save on fees. (no financial advice).
Need more security? The Trezor wallets4) are recommended and easy to use, others are available in the store4). Need more advice? Book an introductory meeting4) with a wallet expert.
The judge apparently ignores the context of the picture. The image comes from the cover of a book by CJ Hopkins, which is no longer sold on Amazon. The lettering “The Rise of the New Normal Reich” makes it easy to see that the ideology of the “New Normal”, which has been reflected in globalist and state structures since the corona measures, is intended to have a fascist connotation through the use of the word Reich, which alludes to the Third Reich.
Corona policy is creating a neo-fascist hygiene regime that contains elements of the rise of the Third Reich. This possible interpretation is flanked by an illustration of a corona mask with a faintly stylized swastika in the middle. The author is a well-known critic of measures and book author who has repeatedly warned of the return of fascist tendencies: Regimes of exception and emergency, decree-based decision-making by new bodies, an increase in propaganda and fear-mongering, open hostility (friend-enemy thinking), etc. He is not known to have made any statements to the contrary.
Hopkins in his plea in court:
“In 2020, the German authorities declared a national state of emergency, for which they provided no concrete evidence, and suspended constitutional rights. Nazi Germany did the same, i.e. in March 1933. From 2020 to 2022, the German authorities forced people to wear symbols of their conformity to the official ideology and perform public rituals of loyalty. The Nazis did the same. The German authorities banned protests against their arbitrary decrees. With the help of the German media, they bombarded the masses with lies and propaganda designed to terrorize the public into mindless obedience. They divided German society according to who conformed to the official ideology and who did not. They censored political dissidents. They robbed people of their jobs because they refused to conform to the official ideology and obey senseless orders. They stirred up mass hatred against a “scapegoat” class of people. They demonized and persecuted critics of government decrees. They dispatched police to brutalize them. They instrumentalized the law to punish political dissidents. Nazi Germany did all this too, as did most other totalitarian systems. I have documented all this in my book. I have spoken out against it. I’ve published essays about it. I’ve tweeted about it.”
The violation of freedom of expression
By relying unilaterally on an inherently illogical interpretation, the court fails to recognize the scope of freedom of expression. Even if one were to say that the image and the tweet are ambiguous, i.e. allow for different interpretations, the judge would have to choose the interpretation in favor of the defendant that gives the greatest weight to freedom of expression. This is what the so-called interaction theory of the Federal Constitutional Court (also known as the seesaw theory) states in established case law.
The interpretation can and must then be: The author criticizes the federal government’s regime of measures during Corona as Nazi-like, i.e. expresses the sharpest factual criticism of it, which he also substantiates in his work. Sharp criticism is covered by freedom of expression as are harsh comparisons. The statement: “or get used to wearing one” can be interpreted as satirical exaggeration, which underlines what has been said by holding out the prospect of continued repression through masks. The Berlin judiciary violates freedom of expression by adjusting the severity of statements in a one-sided political way, i.e. by only sanctioning Nazi comparisons for government critics.
(Is this the legal way to use the swastika in publishing?)
Spiegel and Stern probably apply different standards. But that’s where the AFD comes in. The objective viewer in the form of the judge apparently recognizes the distancing in the Spiegel cover by the lettering “Der Spiegel”. The Spiegel cover itself shows no sign of distancing itself from this, or even suggests that Germany is infiltrated by Nazism, or at least has a subliminal influence. This is suggested by the covering of the swastika with the German flag as a possible true-to-life interpretation. The lettering “Nothing learned?” rather suggests that this has always been the case. “Deutschland ewig Nazideutschland” is one possible interpretation of this cover. It comes alarmingly close to the Antifa ideology.
We are experiencing Weimar in reverse: the judiciary is blind in the left eye. The Berlin judiciary has scored an own goal and basically confirmed CJ Hopkins: “Where the comparison is banned, it was probably appropriate.”
This article by Milosz Matuschek first appeared in German on Freischwebende Intelligenz.
*Join the marketplace of ideas! We are building a publishing ecosystem on Nostr for citizen-journalism, starting with a client for blogging and newsletter distribution. Sound money and sound information should finally be in the hands of the people, right? Want to learn more about the Pareto Project? Zap me, if you want to contribute (all Zaps go to the project).*
*Update: Since my last article on the Pareto project, we have received more than 50 messages from publications, journalists, authors, testers and supporters. Thank you very much, we are happy to help everyone become censorship-resistant! May just take a little time. Are you a publication and want to be part of it, test us, migrate your content to Nostr? Write to team@pareto.space*
*Not yet on Nostr and want the full experience? Easy onboarding via Nosta.me.*