Germany punishes American writer over satirical swastika image

An American political satirist living in Germany is being prosecuted in criminal court for the second time, marking yet another unfortunate milestone in the years-long crusade against a writer for his satirical use of the Nazi swastika. 

“The authorities want to crack down on dissent,” CJ Hopkins told FIRE. “They want to send a message, and that message is shut up and follow orders or we will get you.”

A Berlin district prosecutor charged Hopkins with disseminating propaganda after he posted two images on X featuring an illustration of an inconspicuous white swastika behind a white medical mask to compare the European nation’s COVID-19 policies to Nazism. Hopkins was acquitted in January, but the German legal system allowed the prosecutor to appeal the verdict, sending Hopkins to Berlin Superior Court for his second trial on Aug. 15. 

“I’m pissed off,” Hopkins said in an exclusive interview with FIRE. “I was relieved, and I thought I was finally going to put this behind me.”

Holding back tears, he said, “I can’t believe they’re actually going to take me to trial again.”

WATCH FIRE'S VIDEO ABOUT CJ HOPKINS

View video

‘The atmosphere was really oppressive’

Hopkins, an American playwright and self-described “old lefty,” fled the U.S. to escape what he considered an “oppressive” climate in 2004 ahead of the anticipated re-election of George W. Bush. He strongly opposed the U.S. involvement in the Iraq war, having participated in protests across New York City before his departure. 

“I was called a Saddam lover, a Saddam apologist, a terrorist apologist,” Hopkins recalls. “The atmosphere was really oppressive, and I was miserable. I figured, what the hell! I'll take a chance and try to go live in Europe.”

Hopkins, who moved to Berlin during the summer of 2004, continued his outspoken commentary overseas. He started a blog, The Consent Factory Inc., in 2016, named after Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s 1988 book “Manufacturing Consent,” which argued corporations dominate mainstream media and public opinion in their favor and threaten democracy.

Once the COVID-19 pandemic spread across Europe in 2020, Hopkins quickly became an outspoken critic of lockdowns and vaccine mandates. He was eager to share his views on global pandemic policies and how quickly he felt societies turned into “quasi-pathologized police states” as government officials pushed “a new normal,” he said.

German police forbid ‘speaking Irish’ at Berlin protest

Blog

Free speech trouble spreads across Europe, app censorship in China, and how Iran suppresses critics abroad.

Read More

“They said a new normal is here. Life is going to change forever. Nothing is ever going to be the same, because of a respiratory virus,” Hopkins said about the worldwide rhetoric around COVID-19. He also noted that the Germans did a “particularly German version of it, which as an American, was really disturbing.”

In one of Hopkins’ 2020 essays, “The Covidian Cult,” he explained how societies were pushing a “totalitarian” and “totally psychotic” official narrative “no less delusional than that of the Nazis, or the Manson family, or any other cult.” A month later, he published “The Germans Are Back,” specifically criticizing the European state for its illiberal policies intended to crack down on dissenters of strict COVID-19 measures.

The outspoken critic tore into Germany’s approval of the Infection Protection Act in 2020, that allowed the government to enforce mandates to protect public health, which he compared to the Enabling Act of 1933. The 1933 law similarly gave authority to the Nazi regime to issue any edicts it wanted under the guise of remedying the distress of the people, but German media and government denied the equivalence, Hopkins wrote.

Hopkins self-published many of these brazen essays in his book, “The Rise of the New Normal Reich: Consent Factory Essays,” released in May 2022. The book’s cover art included the audacious image of the white swastika behind a white medical mask that he eventually used to express his viewpoints on social media.

‘Governments are instrumentalizing the law to crack down on dissent’

Hopkins frequently posted on X using his Consent Factory, Inc. account to voice his dissatisfaction with policies around the COVID-19 virus. In August 2022, he wrote that masks are “not a benign measure,” including his book’s cover art to make a satirical point.

“The masks are ideological-conformity symbols. That is all they are. That is all they have ever been,” Hopkins wrote on X. “Stop acting like they have ever been anything else, or get used to wearing them.”

A few days later, Hopkins included his book’s bold cover art in a retweeted post from the national newspaper Die Welt. The post quoted Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach in German, who said “the masks always send out a signal.”

“I saw that, and I thought, ‘Yes, that’s exactly my point Karl,’” Hopkins chuckled.

In May 2023, Hopkins received a letter from the Berlin state prosecutor’s office that said he was under investigation for violating the German Criminal Code, prohibiting the dissemination of “propaganda, the contents of which are intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist Organization.”

“If you’re being criticized for being a fascist as a government agency, and then you bring criminal penalties against the person who’s accusing you of that, that’s pretty authoritarian.”

Specifically, the law bans the “use of symbols of unconstitutional and terrorist organisations,” including flags, slogans, insignia, uniforms and their parts, and slogans, according to the Federal Ministry of Justice.

“It surprises a lot of people because I’m really a free speech absolutist, but I understand the ban on swastikas by Nazis in Germany,” Hopkins said. “I have no interest in seeing actual neo-Nazis running around in Germany waving swastika flags and Nazi insignia.”

But Hopkins also called out the German government’s hypocrisy around the law, explaining how authorities can use it to limit free expression and punish dissent, he said. His two social media posts were quickly removed, and his book was banned on Amazon days after the social media posts went public.

Hopkins additionally alleged that the book had been banned from German bookstores. Meanwhile, the book’s namesake, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” for example, could be found in nearly every Berlin bookstore despite the prominent swastika on its cover. 

“The fact that the government went after him for this sort of validated his criticism,” FIRE Senior Fellow James Kirchick said. “If you’re being criticized for being a fascist as a government agency, and then you bring criminal penalties against the person who’s accusing you of that, that’s pretty authoritarian.”

However, the law does leave room for exceptions. The ban does not apply if the act serves “to prevent unconstitutional activities, to promote the arts or science, research or teaching, reporting about current or historical events, or similar purposes,” according to the Federal Ministry of Justice.

“One of those exceptions stated very clearly is that swastikas can be displayed for the purposes of averting unconstitutional activity, opposing unconstitutional activity, which of course is exactly what I was doing with the cover of my book,” Hopkins said.

As Hopkins gets lambasted and penalized for his satirical use of the swastika, others, including Lauterbach himself, have distributed similar content without repercussions. Last May, Lauterbach reposted a meme on X that featured two swastikas in an image used to compare Germany’s far-right AfD party to the Nazis.

Free Speech Dispatch

Page

The Free Speech Dispatch is a regular series covering new and continuing censorship trends and challenges around the world.

Read More

A recent magazine cover for Der Spiegel, as another example, featured a swastika outline under a German flag. The editors allegedly weren’t charged with a crime.

“I don’t have a problem with the German law. The problem here is that the law is being instrumentalized by the authorities to punish dissent,” Hopkins said. “I am hardly the only case. There are many cases like mine.”

In 2016, a producer for the German television program “heute-show” created an image comparing the people of Austria to a swastika-shaped chicken schnitzel, which was posted to their Facebook account alongside a satirical comment about Austrian voters. German officials investigated the producer, but he reportedly didn’t face other legal consequences.

“The point of this is not that the American laws are wonderful and the German laws are horrible. The point of this is that governments are instrumentalizing the law to crack down on dissent,” Hopkins told FIRE.

Hopkins’ second trial is scheduled for Aug. 15, and according to him the Berlin Superior Court ordered anti-terrorism security protocols, which will limit the number of observers and prohibit cameras among other precautionary measures. The court said the action is the result of a “high-security trial” taking place in the same courtroom, but Hopkins told FIRE he believes the move was intended to intimidate his legal team, discourage press coverage, and prevent accurate reporting of the trial.

“We need to push back against that with every means that we have available,” Hopkins said. “We need to push back against it legally, and we need to publicize it so that people see what is happening.”

If convicted, Hopkins could face either 60 days in jail or a fine of approximately $4,000 dollars.

“I think this case illustrates the fundamental importance of the First Amendment,” Kirchick said. “When you don’t have those fundamental free speech protections — and more importantly, the culture that we have in this country — you’re going to end up like a CJ Hopkins.”