66-year-old fined for sedition

Created: 07/12/2022Updated: 07/12/2022 4:35 p.m

By: Ulrike Osman

In February, under the title "Journalism and Free Vaccination Decisions", the accused depicted the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp in his "Gallery of Horrors" with the caption "Because the killing never ends".

© Markus Müller-Hahl

Landsberg – "Still shocked" by what he was accused of, a 66-year-old showed up in front of the district court of Landsberg.

The accusation was sedition.

The man was accused of relativizing the Holocaust. 

In February, the 66-year-old exhibited several posters at a meeting on the subject of "journalism and free vaccination decisions" on Landsberg's main square.

According to the public prosecutor, under the heading "Gallery of Horrors" he equated the fate of the Jews and other population groups under Nazi rule with the ongoing vaccination campaign against Corona.

landsbergbleibtbunt also criticized the poster as relativizing the Holocaust.

© landsbergbleibtbunt

The posters hung around the Marienbrunnen contained quotes and individual excerpts from worldwide newspaper reports on the subject of vaccine side effects, as well as the sources and personal comments of the 66-year-old on the excerpted content.

Among other things, a photo of the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp was shown, along with the sentence "Because the killing never ends."

Before judge Katrin Prechtel, the pensioner, who lives near Augsburg, denied that he had played down the Nazi reign of terror.

"It is impossible for me to put the Holocaust into perspective," he asserted in a eloquent and emotional statement.

He himself belongs to the Yenish ethnic group, who – like Sinti and Roma – were persecuted by the National Socialists.

Denying or trivializing the Holocaust would, according to a “law of the traveling people,” result in his being expelled from the group.

Not Auschwitz?

The vaccination critic and supporter of conspiracy theories also denied that the watchtower depicted on his poster belonged to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

It was about "any random watchtower in a prison camp" of the kind that existed elsewhere in the world, for example in Russian gulags.

During a search of the home of the former businessman and oil tank cleaner, cell phones and a laptop, among other things, were seized.

The father of four explained that it contained anti-Semitic content by saying that he had done religious research to see “what is possible under this God”.

The man admitted that he wanted to provoke with his posters on the main square.

The public prosecutor was also certain that he was aware of the associations evoked by the image of the watchtower.

"You think of the Nazi era when you think of the vaccination campaign," she accused the accused.

It must be clear to him "that this comparison does not work," stressed Judge Prechtel.

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The 66-year-old, who had no previous convictions, had been sentenced to a fine of 5,400 euros (90 daily rates of 60 euros) and had lodged an appeal.

Since an acquittal was out of the question for the court, at the end of the hearing the man limited his objection to the legal consequences – that is, to the amount of the fine.

Since he only has a very small pension, Prechtel set the daily rate at ten euros, so that he only has to pay 900 euros.

The pensioner accepted the verdict in the courtroom.