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Medieval sculpture at the Wittenberg town church: »Defamation and denigration of Jews«
Photo: IMAGO/Rolf Walter
The relief was "ultimately anti-Semitism set in stone" - that's how the presiding judge characterized the so-called Wittenberg Judensau in the hearing two weeks ago.
And so he repeated it at the verdict this Tuesday.
Nevertheless, the anti-Jewish sandstone relief that has been emblazoned on the Wittenberg town church since the Middle Ages does not have to be removed.
This is due to a bronze plate embedded in the floor in front of the relief in 1988 and an explanatory panel set up next to it: This has transformed the »shame into a memorial«, according to Stephan Seiters, presiding judge of the VI.
Civil Senate of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH).
Filigree justification of the judges
As a result, plaintiff Michael Düllmann lacked "the current violation of rights required for such a claim."
Düllmann felt offended by the sculpture and demanded its removal.
However, the reasoning of the civil senate responsible for general personality rights is already delicate in the press release, but even more so in the oral presentation of the senate chairman.
And it goes far beyond the individual case: It is suitable for the affected parishes to do more in other cases than before - but they would not have to have such sculptures removed under any circumstances.
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Plaintiff Michael Düllmann (before the hearing on May 30): "Poisonous effect on society"
Photo: Uli Deck / picture alliance / dpa
It is by no means self-evident that Düllmann should feel insulted by a sculpture that was not personally made for him either at the time it was created around 1290 or today.
For the BGH, however, it was now out of the question.
The judiciary is generally "rather reluctant" to derive an individual concern from such collective insults, for example of soldiers ("soldiers are murderers").
However, it is recognized that the German genocide of the Jews "joined them into a unity" so that a slur against the group also affects the individual personally: "Through such a depiction, everyone in Germany has a direct claim to validity and respect attacked living Jews.«
"Jewish hostility and hatred"
The relief shows two people with pointed hats holding the teats of a sow;
a third, a rabbi, lifts the animal's tail and looks at its rear end.
In any case, "when considered purely in isolation," Seiters emphasized several times, the relief has "a massively defamatory statement" and expresses "anti-Jewish sentiment and hatred."
The pig, according to Seiters, is known to be unclean in Judaism, while in Christian art of the Middle Ages it embodies the devil.
In 1546, the inscription »Rabini Shem HaMphoras« was placed above the sow, following the anti-Judaist writings of Martin Luther, thereby additionally charging the depiction with blasphemy.
The insult "intensified"
The Protestant church community must also be held responsible for the sculpture and its meaning.
Because the parish council decided in 1983 not only to leave the relief as part of major renovation work, but also to restore it.
As a result, "the infringing condition" was even "intensified," according to the judge.
However, this condition was "eliminated" a little later, in 1988, with a floor slab and an explanation board.
The bronze plate reads: "God's real name, the reviled Shem Ha Mphoras, whom the Jews held almost unspeakably holy before the Christians, died in 6 million Jews under a sign of the cross." « Among other things, on the persecution of Jews in Saxony in the late Middle Ages, on Martin Luther's anti-Semitism and the »Jewish pogroms in National Socialist Germany«.
According to Seiters, it is not important "whether the distancing could have been done differently or better".
But only on "whether one still has to assume an infringement of the law in an overall view".
Neither the understanding of the congregation nor of those who feel offended are decisive, but "the view of the unbiased and understanding public," according to the usual formula.
So you could also say: on the contextual understanding of a BGH judge.
Distancing with words is enough
The evangelical church congregation had "distancing" sufficiently from the defamatory and anti-Jewish statement contained in the relief.
It is crucial that statements - including an insult carved in stone - "take on a different meaning with effect for the future," says Seiters, "if they are placed in a different context".
That is the case here.
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Wittenberg's old town with the town church: "Don't just ask for the removal"
Photo: imageBROKER/Gabriele Thielmann / imago images/imagebroker
It is also practically impossible for someone to perceive the offending relief several meters above the ground in isolation;
this can only be recognized "after closer inspection".
Based on "life experience," it can be assumed that a viewer "first perceives the objects" that "stand in the way" or "lie in front of him," explained Seiters.
Even if the relief "from the beginning and only ever served to defame and disparage Jews" and "hardly any pictorial representation is conceivable that is more in conflict with the legal system," as the VI.
Civil Senate put it - it therefore does not have to be eliminated.
Finally, Judge Seiters pointed out that a lack of distancing should by no means lead to a claim for removal.
In other cases, this means that it is up to those responsible to decide how to eliminate an illegal, insulting situation - whether by removing the sculpture or just with explanatory words.
Plaintiff Düllmann, who says he converted to Judaism in 1978 and has called himself Michael since then, sees things differently: Neither the Federal Court of Justice as the appeals body nor the specialist courts "really took the propagandistic effect, the poisoning effect on society seriously."
He now wants to go before the Federal Constitutional Court.
Nevertheless, he was not disappointed by the renewed defeat.
After all, the process has given the subject the attention it deserves.
"A lot has already been done."