German trial over Anne Frank book

BBB ^ | Monday, February 28, 2007

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

The Diary of Anne Frank was displayed on the judge's desk

A suspected German neo-Nazi has admitted publicly burning a copy of Anne Frank's diary, at the start of his trial with six others.

The suspects are accused of inciting racial hatred and disparaging the dead.

Prosecutors in the eastern German city of Magdeburg said Lars Konrad, 25, threw the book onto a bonfire during a summer solstice party in June 2006.

Anne Frank wrote her diary while she and her family hid from the Nazis in an attic in Amsterdam during World War II.

The indictment says the public burning took place in Pretzien, near Magdeburg, and that the accused, aged from 24 to 29, glorified the Nazis.

Denying the Holocaust and incitement of racial hatred both carry maximum jail terms of five years under German law.

Mr Konrad's lawyer argued that he was merely trying to expiate an evil chapter in German history.

But state prosecutor Arnold Murra said the defendants "ridiculed Anne Frank and all those who died in the concentration camps".

The case shocked Germany, fuelling fears that neo-Nazism was on the rise in poor areas of the former East Germany.

Anne Frank's diary, found after the war, has moved millions of readers.

She died just before her 16th birthday in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

What is your opinion, especially to German freepers? Is neo-Nazism on the rise in the former East Germany?

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

And paganism to boot.

[DonaldC]

While the act was disgusting, what about free speech?

[mainepatsfan]

No doubt the mullahs in Iran consider the book a fabrication.

[BikerJoe]

"While the act was disgusting, what about free speech?"

It's Europe, there isn't any.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

In another BBC article on that topic, an ordinary Iranian defending the Iranian president contradicted himself when he stated that the president wasn't challenging that the German Holocaust occurred, but then later went on to state the president's view that if there was a Holocaust. So, it does seem that the Iranians have difficulty accepting that there was genocide in Europe during World War 2.

[mainepatsfan]

I've always thought it was odd that some Israeli haters in the ME would deny the Holocaust on the one hand and yet call the Israelis Nazis on the other hand.

[Screamname]

No, I don`t think it is on the rise, you will always have that anti-semitic, Nazi loving, Jew hating element just like we have the Democrat party here in the USA.

[TheDon]

When you can get arrested for political speech, yeah.

[TheDon]

Europe has a bit to learn from the USA about freedom of speech and religion.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Europe's history has to be taken into account, too, though.

[edsheppa]

My opinion is that it's been over 60 years and the Germans still haven't mastered that Free Speech thing.

[antiRepublicrat]

And paganism to boot.

I saw a lot of paganism, especially with the big Walpurgisnacht parties. Not that it was a problem.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

[something] night.

Winter solstice night?

[antiRepublicrat]

Winter solstice night?

Walpurgisnacht is an old pagan celebration with lots of bonfires, around April 30, which also puts it around the Celtic Beltane festival so they might be related. It's really "Witches' Night" but got the "Walpurgis" part due to a saint later being canonized around that same time of year.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Appreciated.

[Jacquerie]

I have no idea what the German Constitution has to say about free speech. I do know that anti-semitism runs deep, at least 900 years. Given the Nazi past, it is understandable that overt anti-semitism is harshly dealt with.

As for our Constitutionally protected free speech, we have a law, sanctified by the Scotus blackrobes, that proscribes what we can print about politicians just before elections. IMO, McCain/Feingold is a bigger threat to the people's free speech rights than the German laws regarding anti-semitism.

[edsheppa]

I'll try to paraphrase your thinking: it's OK that Germans don't have free speech because McCain and Bush and five Supreme Court justices have attacked free speech in America. I completely reject that. The Germans are wrong and McCain is wrong. I trust you've heard the aphorism two wrongs don't make a right.

[Jacquerie]

Yes, you tried to paraphrase my thinking and failed.

[edsheppa]

In what way did I fail?