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»Judensau« relief on the Wittenberg town church
Photo: Hendrik Schmidt / dpa
The sandstone relief known as »Judensau« on the facade of the town church in Wittenberg in Saxony-Anhalt does not have to be removed, the Federal Court of Justice ruled in mid-June.
But the Jewish plaintiff does not want to accept the decision - and is now going before the Federal Constitutional Court.
SPIEGEL has received the constitutional complaint of pensioner Michael Dietrich Düllmann, who lives in Bonn, dated July 25, 2022.
It states that the BGH judgment and previous judgments "violate the fundamental rights of the complainant".
Düllmann's lawyers are demanding that the BGH judgment be overturned and the case referred back to the Federal Court of Justice.
The relief was to be removed "in view of the serious violation of personal rights involved, not only of the complainant, but of every Jew in Germany."
»Perverted Imagery«
The "bizarre or perverse imagery of the sandstone relief, which is supposed to depict the Jews as an unnatural scum of humanity," violates the basic rights of the plaintiff, it is said.
As a "Jew in Germany" he was thus violated in his general personality rights protected by the Basic Law.
In addition, the constitutional complaint speaks of violations of the principle of equality in the Basic Law.
The relief on the former sermon church of Martin Luther shows a sow whose teats are being suckled by two people who can be identified as Jews by their pointed hats.
According to the BGH, a figure considered to be a rabbi lifts the animal's tail and looks into the anus.
In the Jewish faith, pigs are considered unclean.
The BGH had declared in its judgment that the relief from the 13th century was indeed insulting - by attaching a base plate and a stand with an explanatory text, the parish had converted the "shame" into a "memorial" (Az.: VI ZR 172/20).
The defendant parish had thus distanced itself sufficiently.
The plaintiff disagrees.
The relief is not about “slander” or “insult” in the usual sense, “but about character assassination, which was followed by murder – both at the time the relief was attached to the Wittenberg town church and in the centuries that followed up to the Shoah !« The contextualization with the help of the base plate and the stand-up display was »neither generally nor specifically suited to relativizing or even neutralizing the serious violation of the complainant’s personality rights as a ›Jew in Germany‹.
The depiction of »Judensau« has occupied the church, civil society and the courts for years.
On Tuesday, an expert advisory board recommended the “prompt acceptance” of the relief.
This was announced by a spokesman for the committee that was convened on behalf of the parish church council.
The sculpture must be withdrawn from the "current visibility" - preferably by "removal".
The relief should then be placed elsewhere with an adequate context.
Up to the European Court of Human Rights
Plaintiff Michael Dietrich Düllmann has been demanding the removal of the relief for years and also brought the case to court.
Before the BGH judgment, he had already failed before the Dessau-Roßlau District Court and the Naumburg Higher Regional Court.
In the event of another defeat, he would go to the Federal Constitutional Court, Düllmann had announced before the BGH judgment.
There it is not about civil law questions about insult and omission, but about the Basic Law and human dignity.
And if that doesn't help either, he still has to go to the European Court of Human Rights.
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