German Court Outlaws Foreign Nazi Websites

On December 12, 2000 the Bundesgerichtshof – Germany’s Supreme Court – held that Germany’s domestic laws on Nazi propaganda are also applicable to web sites located on servers abroad, thus reversing an earlier judgement of a lower court. The defendant in the case, the director of the Australia-based Adelaide Institute – a Holocaust denying institute – was arrested when visiting Germany in 1999. He was charged with offending the memory of the deceased and inciting the public by spreading ‘Auschwitz lies’ in both printed pamphlets and in publications on the web site of his institute. In particular, he claimed that the Holocaust is a Jewish invention…[more]