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Transcript

How Freedom of Speech Is Being Destroyed in Germany - One Verdict at a Time: Attorney Dirk Schmitz

“What influential, interconnected woke groups are doing here in Germany, but also in Europe, is: they are systematically and deliberately trying to destroy freedom of expression—and in that respect, JD Vance hit the nerve in his Munich speech —and they are doing that by making the price of expressing an opinion so high that you either simply stop doing it or you better ask a lawyer first, for simple sentences and simple images, and even lawyers are sometimes wrong.”

In this first part of a three part series on censorship in Germany, attorney Dirk Schmitz explains to Cornelia Mrose how public prosecutors and judges are destroying freedom of speech through unequal application of law and disproportionality. Case in point is his client Alexander Wallasch whose independent news platform has been threatened to be shut down by the Lower Saxony State Media Authority. Attorney Schmitz: “We have a dramatic erosion of the law in Germany, and that takes place firstly in the area of ​​unequal application of the law and then in the area of ​​disproportionality.”

Germany doesn’t have any laws against hate speech - but that doesn’t prevent state prosecutors and judges from prosecuting and sentencing people for expressing politically incorrect opinions: “Nowadays, hate speech and incitement are prosecuted, even though they are not criminally prosecutable according to the law.”

He describes how a two-tier justice system has been created through countless judicial verdicts where different standards are applied to defendants according to their political views: “All courts currently operate in the same way: Criminal complaints against left-wing attacks are deliberately and systematically ignored by the German authorities if they go in the wrong direction… In recent years, free speech prosecutions have multiplied due to a politically dominated or compromised legal system.”

CHAPTERS

  • 00:00 Alexander Wallasch And His News Platform

  • 01:26 Censorship And Freedom Of Expression In Germany

  • 01:40 Limits Of Freedom Of Speech In German Law

  • 02:00 How Germany’s Constitution Guarantees And Limits Freedom Of Speech

  • 03:20 Each Federal State In Germany Has Its Own Press Law

  • 03:40 Criminal Speech Offenses: Insult And Slander

  • 04:00: “Incitement To Hatred” - Volksverhetzung

  • 05:30 Germans As A Group Are Incapable Of Being Offended

  • 06:15 Germans Are Not An Ethnic Group According To German Law

  • 07:13 ‘Enclosure Of The Law’ - Curtailment Of German Law Through Judicial Verdicts

  • 08:00 Who Decides What is Incitement to Hatred?

  • 09:01 Insulting A Politician Is An Aggravating Offense

  • 09:49 Unequal Application Of The Law And Disproportionality

  • 10:58 Public Prosecutors Have No Independent Function Whatsoever In Germany

  • 12:25 All German Courts Operate Currently In The Same Way - Why?

  • 13:55 Eugyppius’ Substack ‘A Plague Chronicle’

  • 14:18 Free Speech Cases: Attorney Schmitz’ Daily Business

  • 14:30 Free Speech Prosecutions Have Multiplied In Recent Years

  • 14:41 Nazi Emblems Forbidden In Germany For Historical Reasons - But Not Always

  • 18:10 National Socialist Slogans Can Lead To Prosecutions

  • 19:43 People On The Left Are Allowed To Use Nazi Emblems In A Negative Sense - But Conservatives Are Not

  • 20:08 AfD Members Are Prosecuted When They Draw Parallels Between Current Events In Germany And The Third Reich

  • 21:15 Complete Online Investigations Into Defendants With ‘Incorrect’ Opinions

  • 21:31 Prosecutions For Pasting Images Critical Of Nazis On Social Media - But Only For Conservatives Or Afd Members

  • 21:54 Germany’s Deeps State And What Schmitz Likes About Trump

  • 22:07 Germany’s Deep State Is Deeper Than America’s Deep State

  • 22:33 In Germany The Entire Internet Is Surveilled By The State

  • 23:03 “Incitement” and Hate Speech Are Prosecuted, Even Though They Are Not Criminally Prosecutable According To The Law

  • 23:23 Hate Speech Crime Does Not Exist In German Law

  • 23:45 Free Speech Is Suppressed in Germany By Making It Unaffordable

  • 24:50 What Constitutes An Insult?

  • 25:30 It’s Unclear To Citizens What Courts Will Regard As an Insult And What Not

  • 25:58 Hollowing Out The Law By Not Enforcing It - As Happened in the Third Reich As Well

  • 26:56 NGOs In Germany: “Fascist Front Organizations”

  • 27:36 ‘Opinion SA’ Financed By The German State

  • 27:43 How Much Money Flows From USAID To German NGOs

  • 27:54 How The German State Funnels Money Into NGOs

  • 28:11 Bribing The German Media Through Advertisements

  • 28:28 Financial Control Of The State Over German Media

  • 30:00 The German State Depends on Systematic Concealment Of Its Financial Control Over Media

  • 31:12 How State Subsidies Impede Freedom Of Speech In Private Media

RESOURCES

https://www.alexander-wallasch.de/

eugyppius: a plague chronicle
Tweedle-Dum, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Three: Musings on the German Speech Police Courtesy of 60 Minutes
Many readers sent me this 60 Minutes segment on the German internet speech police, and I’ve watched it about ten times now. I’m not exaggerating. It’s just remarkable to see a central theme of the plague chronicle appearing on an American news programme, and also (once again) slightly embarrassing – like having one’s regrettable family affairs aired in public. The Federal Republic really is an open-air insane asylum, competing for the top spot in a Europe full of similarly crazy countries…
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