As a journalist, you can hardly keep up with the current news situation these days. On Monday afternoon, according to the latest report from Aiwanger & Aiwanger, the self-proclaimed leaflet writer Helmut Aiwanger explained: His brother Hubert may have had the anti-Semitic leaflets in his school bag at the time because he collected them to explain the situation to de-escalate. According to this account, Hubert not only accepted the punishment for his brother, but also wanted to do a good deed.
What is certain is that Hubert Aiwanger got off pretty lightly at the time: he was supposed to give a presentation on National Socialism because of the leaflets in his schoolbag – after he said he had previously been threatened with the police. A presentation as penance for hate speech in Nazi jargon – the Aiwangers can thank the school director afterwards.
In the 1980s, you could be kicked out of school elsewhere for trifles that seem ridiculous today. The best-known case is that of Christine Schanderl from Regensburg. She was expelled from the Albertus Magnus High School in 1980 for wearing a “stop bouquet” button. Such badges belonged to the standard accessories of left-wing youth, along with “Nuclear power – no thanks” and “Voluntarily 100 for the sake of the forest”.
The headmaster wasn’t kidding – after all, 1980 was also the year of the federal elections with Chancellor candidate Franz Josef Strauss (CSU): “Schanderl, leave the school premises immediately, otherwise I’ll call the police and report trespassing,” he said who bullied 18-year-olds.
The school year was over for Christine Schanderl two weeks before the holidays. But not her fight against the Bavarian school rules, which classified the wearing of stickers as inadmissible political agitation: She complained to the Bavarian Constitutional Court – and was right in May 1981. A truly historic judgement. Since then, freedom of expression has also applied to Bavarian schools.
However, inflammatory writings were and remain an exception to this.