John Rosenthal has translated an interesting piece from Lizas Welt: Tragicomedy in the Bavarian Alps. It sheds light on some of the pecularities of German law…
It is well known that anti-American jokes are in fashion nowadays here in Germany. Whoever, for example, pokes the usual fun at George W. Bush can be more or less sure to have the laughs on his side. And then those “Amis” have such absurd laws: in America, for example, one can sue the tobacco industry for damages if one gets lung cancer from smoking too much. The average German just shakes his head, because that he finds crazy. When, however, what goes on in his own country is far more bizarre, he barely takes notice. This although hardly anything could surpass the tragicomedy involved in three neo-Nazis who use the phrase “Glory and Honor of the Waffen-SS!” being acquitted of charges of having violated paragraph 86a of the German Criminal Code, which prohibits the “use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations,” while a declared anti-Nazi who wanted to distribute leaflets promoting a talk against Nazism and Islamism is found guilty on the very same charge. (…)
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