On Censorship in the pre-Nazi Weimar Republic

by Cool_Facebook_Mom

*This is a repost from an old post from a deleted user with no answer. I thought that was a shame since it's an interesting question so it might just be worth reposting*

I recently read some surprising claims about censorship in pre-Nazi Weimar Republic. The claims are from this article: https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2018/02/far-right-not-favour-free-speech-need-champion-free-speech-risk-far-right-controlling-conversation/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-pug

People argue that if only the Weimar government had clamped down on the National Socialists’ verbal persecution of the Jews in the years prior to Hitler’s rise to power, then the Holocaust would never have happened.
Rose, who famously published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in 2005 when he was culture editor of Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten, said:
“Contrary to what most people think, Weimar Germany did have hate-speech laws, and they were applied quite frequently. The assertion that Nazi propaganda played a significant role in mobilising anti-Jewish sentiment is, of course, irrefutable. But to claim that the Holocaust could have been prevented if only anti-Semitic speech and Nazi propaganda had been banned has little basis in reality. Leading Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch and Julius Streicher were all prosecuted for anti-Semitic speech.
“Pre-Hitler Germany had laws very much like the anti-hate laws of today, and they were enforced with some vigour.”

The source of this quote appears to be from this interview with the New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/copenhagen-speech-violence

Researching my book, I looked into what actually happened in the Weimar Republic. I found that, contrary to what most people think, Weimar Germany did have hate-speech laws, and they were applied quite frequently. The assertion that Nazi propaganda played a significant role in mobilizing anti-Jewish sentiment is, of course, irrefutable. But to claim that the Holocaust could have been prevented if only anti-Semitic speech and Nazi propaganda had been banned has little basis in reality. Leading Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch, and Julius Streicher were all prosecuted for anti-Semitic speech. Streicher served two prison sentences. Rather than deterring the Nazis and countering anti-Semitism, the many court cases served as effective public-relations machinery, affording Streicher the kind of attention he would never have found in a climate of a free and open debate**. In the years from 1923 to 1933,** Der Stürmer [Streicher's newspaper] was either confiscated or editors taken to court on no fewer than thirty-six occasions. The more charges Streicher faced, the greater became the admiration of his supporters. The courts became an important platform for Streicher's campaign against the Jews. In the words of a present-day civil-rights campaigner, pre-Hitler Germany had laws very much like the anti-hate laws of today, and they were enforced with some vigor. As history so painfully testifies, this type of legislation proved ineffectual on the one occasion when there was a real argument for it.

I have been googling to try and find some support for these claims and I'm not finding them. Can someone help me fact-check this please? I find these claims to be quite extraordinary and I want to know if they're true or if this is really shoddy journalism.

Orel_Beilinson

This is partly true. In 1924, Streicher was arrested for his "national-communist activities",^(1) but indeed he was arrested in 1925 for "continuous insult and continuous defamation". Defamation was a civil suit that required proof of actual damage, which made it extremely hard to prove. Insult was much more flexible, and indeed Goebbels and others were frequent guests of the court; Theodor Fritsch was convicted more than 33 times for violations of the law on insults, defamation, and "incitement to class violence".

In Weimar Germany, the crime of Beleidigung (insult) was very popular in the courthouse. Even without proving any actual damage, a prerequisite to filing a civil suit, a prosecutor could initiate legal proceedings "in the public interest" if someone complained. Political pressure, which was endemic in Weimar Germany, made prosecutors particularly keen on filing these. Overall, while overused, it was not particularly successful in deterring people from "insulting". Some attacks, like against "Jews" in general or even "German Jews" more particularly, did not prove to count as insults. When insults did count, which was indeed frequently enough, the light fines made always no difference whatsoever.

There were also more subtle ways to suffer from anti-Semitic activities which amounted to de facto censorship. Julius Streicher, for example, was fired from his job as a primary school teacher because of his anti-Semitic convictions as applied to his pedagogy, construed by his colleagues as "anti-German". This was arguably more severe a punishment than the light fine insulters usually paid and maybe more severe than the time in prison he spent for "continuous" insult and defamation

For further reading: Ambrose Doskow, "Anti-Semitism and the Law in Pre-Nazi Germany" (1940); Donald L. Niewyk, "Jews and the Courts in Weimar Germany," Jewish Social Studies 37, no. 2 (1975): 99-113; Cyril Levitt, "The Prosecution of Antisemites by the Courts in the Weimar Republic: Was Justice Served?," The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 36, no. 1 (1991): 151-167.

^(1) Franco Ruault: "Neuschöpfer des deutschen Volkes". Julius Streicher im Kampf gegen "Rassenschande". Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006. S. 225.