Germany charges pensioner for sharing meme

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has pressed charges against a 64-year-old man from Bavaria for sharing a meme calling him an idiot.

Sometime in June, Stefan Niehoff shared a meme featuring a photo of Habeck with an altered logo of a popular shampoo brand, changing it from Schwarzkopf (black head) to Schwachkopf (weak head). Police raided his home in Lower Franconia at dawn on Tuesday and seized his tablet.

Habeck’s lawyers have filed a criminal complaint against Niehoff, prosecutors in the town of Bamberg told the German news agency dpa on Friday. They added that Niehoff also faced charges of uploading an image to X that “referenced the Nazi era.”

The court warrant had authorized a search and seizure of all of Niehoff’s mobile phones, internet-enabled devices and digital storage media, according to documents obtained by the outlet Nius.

“I am 64 years old. I never imagined that it would come to this. This definitely has a GDR flavor,” Niehoff told Nius, referring to the former East Germany.

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He said that officers of the Schweinfurt Criminal Investigation Department showed up at his house shortly after 6am, dragged him from bed for questioning and confiscated his tablet, traumatizing his daughter – who has Down syndrome – in the process.

Prosecutors in Bamberg have recorded Niehoff’s alleged offense as a “politically motivated right-wing crime.” Charges against the man claim he “published an image” of the minister “in order to generally defame Robert Habeck and to make it more difficult for him to carry out his work as a member of the federal government.”

The raid of Niehoff’s home was part of a countrywide “day of action against hate postings,” in which the German police searched 50 homes and carried out 90 investigations, according to Nius.

“When police are at the door, every perpetrator realizes that hate crimes have consequences,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser posted on X, bragging about the raids.

The opposition Alternative for Germany (AfD) party responded by reposting the meme on X and accusing Habeck of being a tyrant in disguise.

“This is what would happen to Germany under a Chancellor Habeck: the complete restriction of freedom of expression by a children’s book author who displayed maximum incompetence for three and a half years, but still feels called to greater things,” wrote the AfD.

Another German posted a mash-up of the Green’s campaign message (“Only Democracy Creates Freedom”) and a photo of police breaking down a door.

Habeck’s Greens are part of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s collapsing “traffic light coalition,” having received 15% of the vote in the last election. Their other most notable cabinet official is Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

Last week, in a video floating his candidacy for chancellor in the upcoming election, Habeck denounced the “fungus of populism” that he claimed was around Germany fueled by “authoritarian regimes with troll armies and bots.”