German Cops Criminally Charge And Sue American Tourist For Calling Them "Nazis"

 

It has become common practice for the American left to call everybody who they happen to dislike or politically disagree with “Nazis,” but such pejoratives aren’t taken with a grain of salt in some places.

 

Like Germany.

 

The country in which Adolf Hitler’s death cult originated is still very sensitive to all of the evils of real Nazism, and not the ridiculous and historically inaccurate fantasy version that liberals have embraced since President Trump’s election.

 

One woman found this out out the hard way and is facing a lawsuit from German police for slandering them as “Nazis” during a dispute that flared up when she attempted to board an airplane with too many liquids in her carry-on baggage. She also faces criminal charges.

 

The woman, who identified herself as a Georgetown University professor in a deranged screed that she published at the Huffington Post, is now faced with a sticky international legal problem

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The professor says she never called German police at the airport "Nazis." She claims she was talking about the "Nazi-looking dude" behind her. https://t.co/x1NeRHaHxh

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) January 26, 2018

 

Via USA Today, “German police sue American woman for slander for calling them ‘Nazis’”:

 

An angry American traveler found herself plunged into German legal waters this month after allegedly calling federal police officers “Nazis” during a dispute at Frankfurt International Airport.

 

Police say the woman, a 49-year-old professor, became “unreasonable and irritated” when they told her she had too many liquids in her carry-on during a screening for explosives.

 

The issue of too many liquids morphed quickly — by her own account – into a tail-chasing argument over her deodorant:  They insisted it must go; she claimed that made no sense since it was a solid.

 

It was approximately at this point that police allege she called them “f–ing bastards” and “f–ing German Nazi police.” But she says she never called the police “Nazis.” What they heard was her wondering why she caught flack instead of the “Nazi-looking dude” with a “Hitler’s youth haircut” in line behind her.

 

The result of the altercation: preliminary criminal proceedings against the woman on suspicion of slander, plus a $260-bill (€207) upfront for any subsequent legal expenses. Days later, her case got worse when she published an incendiary 4,000-word tirade about the incident in the Huffington Post.

 

You would think that a well-educated woman and especially one who is a “Distinguished Associate Professor within Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service” would be a little more sensitive than to throw around such slurs while in Deutschland itself.

 

She certainly didn’t help herself with her blazing denunciation of the German police, which is so deranged that you have to read it to believe it.

 

An excerpt from “Framed, Arrested and Robbed by the Police in Frankfurt: A Not-So Funny Thing Happened on my Way to the Forum in Delhi”:

 

In retrospect, what I experienced was little more than jack booted thuggery. I also suspect that this was deeply gendered. These two men were annoyed that a woman (whom they repeatedly called “Miss” despite the fact that I am a 49-year old woman) dared to seek accountability for their unprofessional behavior. I continue to wonder who else Austav has abused but whom he intimidated into silence? I fear for a racial or religious minority that would encounter him. What contempt would he show them? This man does not belong in any uniform, except perhaps the one which corrupt police officers wear in jail….were they ever to be jailed for their abuses of power.

 

While the angry professor is clearly a woman with an ax to grind, it is uncertain whether it is even a crime to call someone a “Nazi” in Germany.

 

Via German website DW.com, which is the original source for the USA Today story:

 

It’s a big deal, but is it illegal?

 

Under paragraph 185 of the German penal code, slander is a criminal offense. Shouting “You old a–hole,” landed an impatient driver with a €1,600 fine in 2016; that same year a teen was ordered to do community service after flashing police with “ACAB” (“All cops are bastards”), which was tattooed on the inside of his lip.

 

Comparing people to Nazis, or to the Third Reich, is in a class of its own.

 

“If I say, you’re a moron, you’re an idiot, you’re a Nazi, there’s of course more to it than the insult ‘you’re dumb.’ Saying ‘Nazi’ implies unscrupulous acts and barbarism,” law professor Manfred Heinrich of Kiel University told DW.

 

As Heinrich emphasizes, Germany has outlawed the glorification of Nazism. But no law forbids calling someone a Nazi.

 

What is illegal is what German law refers to as “hurting someone’s honor” — in this sense, meaning somebody’s worth or hurting someone’s reputation through verbal abuse. Violating this principle constitutes slander.

 

Given the millions of lives lost under the Nazi regime either through systematic extermination or war, not to mention other unspeakable horrors committed in the name of Adolf Hitler, comparisons to the Third Reich are simply no ordinary insults.

 

“You could call it overly sensitive. But in Germany most people don’t want to be put into that category. Those were terrible things that happened and people don’t want to be compared to that.”

 

But it is probably a reasonable conclusion to suggest that the professor’s problems began the minute that she chose to open her mouth and make a scene instead of complying with airport authorities who were only doing their jobs.

 

 

Source:   The Federalist Papers