Holocaust denial in Germany: an alarming case of mission creep

Dear Reader,

An activist who held up a sign reading “Stop the Holocaust in Gaza”; a Green lawmaker who said his party was “the new Jews” whom others were trying to wipe out; a pensioner who posted an image of the gates of Auschwitz captioned “vaccination will set you free.”

What do these three displays of bad taste all have in common? All three are acts of criminality that can be prosecuted under Germany’s increasingly sweeping sedition laws.

In the case of the pro-Palestine activist, she was convicted earlier this month and forced to pay a fine of €1,250. The Green politician was found guilty of stirring up sedition in July and fined €4,200. In April, a federal court dismissed an appeal by an anti-vaxxer pensioner against his fine of €4,000.

Volksverhetzung (sedition) is one of several speech crimes that are peculiar to Germany, and which have led to accusations that the country doesn’t meet basic Western standards on the primacy of freedom of speech.

Earlier this year, the criminalisatio…