Nazi comparisons are booming. But at the moment it is not angry Greeks who are drawing Angela Merkel with a Hitler mustache as dictator, like during the debt crisis ten years ago. They are German right-wing extremists – people who are not so far removed from the anti-Semitic thinking of the Nazis themselves. Corona masks are printed with a yellow Star of David and the word “Unvaccinated”, as if today’s Corona policy were comparable to the persecution of Jews by the Nazi regime. Photomontages of the gate to the Auschwitz concentration camp with the inscription “vaccination makes you free” are distributed, as if Merkel and Jens Spahn were planning genocide.
The case of a Munich resident could become a model trial
So far, the judiciary has done little to counter this. The Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office is now taking a significant step. On Friday officials rang the doorbell of a 45-year-old man from Munich and searched his apartment. They took smartphones and computers with them. The man was charged with sedition. He had posted a two-part picture on his Facebook page, on the lower half of which the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp could be seen with the words “Arbeit macht frei”. Above it is a drawing with “Vaccination Makes You Free” and a row of black uniformed men with huge syringes in their hands. “Everything has been there before,” was written next to it.
Imprisonment of up to five years or a fine – that should now be the result for this post, which was liked 52 times and commented on 26 times within a few days, the Public Prosecutor’s Office counted exactly. It is unspeakable, says her anti-Semitism officer, Andreas Franck: “That belittles the murderous persecution of Jews during the Nazi era.” It is “equating” with the current Corona policy. He wants to make this case a model trial. The Internet is currently full of such comparisons, especially in the lateral thinker movement, they are common. “But the sedition paragraph has hardly been applied so far.”
Comparisons with the yellow Star of David remain controversial
The judiciary is groping its way into a sensitive area here. Various district courts throughout Germany have already decided on the yellow Star of David with the inscription “Unvaccinated”: It is not a criminal offense. The reason: According to the wording of the penal code, “playing down” is only punishable as sedition if it specifically relates to killings in concentration camps, for example. The arguments of the courts: The yellow star that Jews in the Nazi state were forced to wear from 1941 onwards was something other than killing. The representative of the Attorney General, Andreas Franck, doubts this argument. The Jewish star was a direct precursor to the Holocaust. “That is why it can hardly be conveyed that our hands are tied in criminal law.”
For the time being, the authorities in Bavaria are therefore choosing a different route. The misuse of the yellow star is prohibited by condition, at least during demonstrations. Only when the Nazi comparison becomes more drastic and explicitly refers to concentration camps should officials in future ring the doorbell for searches more often.