A German man took his case to the court after being convicted for posting a picture of Heinrich Himmler. But the court argued that German authorities had not undermined freedom of expression given the country's history.
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The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday rejected a complaint filed by a German man after he was convicted for posting a picture of Nazi war criminal Heinrich Himmler in SS uniform bearing a swastika.
The Strasbourg court "found that the domestic authorities had provided relevant and sufficient reasons for interfering with Mr. Nix's right to freedom of expression and had not gone beyond their room for maneuver in the case," said the court's ruling. It said that German authorities had not undermined freedom of expression given the country's history.
The court said the 54-year-old man must have known about German legislation that criminalized the use of Nazi symbols since he had been convicted before for publishing an image of German Chancellor Angela Merkel wearing a swastika armband and bearing a Hitler-like moustache.
However, the court noted that Nix had "not intended to spread Nazi ideology and might have thought he was contributing to a debate of public interest."
Scraping off Nazi propaganda
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'Eye-catching device'
In 2015, a Munich court convicted Nix of using "symbols of unconstitutional organizations," arguing that he had not sufficiently distanced himself from Nazi ideology and used the picture as an "eye-catching device." He received a five-month suspended sentence.
Nix appealed to higher courts, saying the blog post aimed at criticizing discrimination against children with migrant backgrounds in German schools and employment offices. However, his appeal efforts were rejected.
He took his case to the ECHR after Germany's Constitutional Court refused to further examine his case, invoking Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to freedom of expression.
The German National Socialist Workers' party profoundly affected the course of 20th-century world history with their ideology, propaganda and crimes. Who were the key leaders of the movement?
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Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945)
As Hitler's Propaganda Minister, the virulently anti-Semitic Goebbels was responsible for making sure a single, iron-clad Nazi message reached every citizen of the Third Reich. He strangled freedom of the press, controlled all media, arts, and information, and pushed Hitler to declare "Total War." He and his wife committed suicide in 1945, after poisoning their six children.
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Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
The leader of the German National Socialist Workers' Party (Nazi) developed his anti-Semitic, anti-communist and racist ideology well before coming to power as Chancellor in 1933. He undermined political institutions to transform Germany into a totalitarian state. From 1939 to 1945, he led Germany in World War II while overseeing the Holocaust. He committed suicide in April 1945.
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Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945)
As leader of the Nazi paramilitary SS ("Schutzstaffel"), Himmler was one of the Nazi party members most directly responsible for the Holocaust. He also served as Chief of Police and Minister of the Interior, thereby controlling all of the Third Reich's security forces. He oversaw the construction and operations of all extermination camps, in which more than 6 million Jews were murdered.
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Rudolf Hess (1894-1987)
Hess joined the Nazi party in 1920 and took part in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, a failed Nazi attempt to gain power. While in prison, he helped Hitler write "Mein Kampf." Hess flew to Scotland in 1941 to attempt a peace negotiation, where he was arrested and held until the war's end. In 1946, he stood trial in Nuremberg and was sentenced to life in prison, where he died.
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Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962)
Alongside Himmler, Eichmann was one of the chief organizers of the Holocaust. As an SS Lieutenant colonel, he managed the mass deportations of Jews to Nazi extermination camps in Eastern Europe. After Germany's defeat, Eichmann fled to Austria and then to Argentina, where he was captured by the Israeli Mossad in 1960. Tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity, he was executed in 1962.
Image: AP/dapd
Hermann Göring (1893-1946)
A participant in the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Göring became the second-most powerful man in Germany once the Nazis took power. He founded the Gestapo, the Secret State Police, and served as Luftwaffe commander until just before the war's end, though he increasingly lost favor with Hitler. Göring was sentenced to death at Nuremberg but committed suicide the night before it was enacted.
