German court blocks firing of cop who said Jewish leader should die in Auschwitz

The Jewish community is furious that police will have to keep the man on its payroll.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A Munich court has upheld a ruling that the police cannot fire an officer who used to guard the head of German Jewry, even though he had wished her dead in private and betrayed a pro-Nazi mindset on social media.

The Bavarian Administrative Court decided that a lower court had been correct that Michael R.’s statements were protected under his right to freedom of speech, even though they were “thoughtless” and “unacceptable.”

These included messages he sent to friends saying that he would like to see Charlotte Knobloch sent to the gas chambers in Auschwitz to die.

Knobloch is a Holocaust survivor whom he was safeguarding at the time as the president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews.

He also ended many of his chats with the letters “HH” or “SH,” which are commonly used in neo-Nazi circles as abbreviations for “Heil Hitler” and “Sieg Heil,” the presentation of the Nazi salute.

Although it is illegal in Germany to belong to neo-Nazi groups, the court “could not be fully convinced that the defendant held an anti-constitutional attitude at the time of the offenses,” it said in part.

The court ruled that the statements were made in private and as “playful provocation” and therefore they could not be considered “improper conduct” that influenced his police work or words for which he could not be held criminally liable.

It did agree to the police appeal that he be put in an administrative position instead of having daily contact with the public, but only demoted him one salary level instead of the two imposed by the lower court.

The court’s decision surprised Knobloch and angered the Jewish community.

“I find myself at a loss in the face of this ruling,” said the 92-year-old, still-active Jewish leader. “This is about trust. If I rely on security personnel to protect me, I must be able to trust them. Unfortunately, we see antisemitism everywhere today, but it cannot be tolerated in places where people are supposed to safeguard minorities.”

This was a “shameful and sad verdict,” said International Auschwitz Committee President Eva Umlauf, which was based on the judges’ “shabby and absurd omissions.”

The federal government’s antisemitism commissioner, Felix Klein, described the decision to the Welt newspaper as “difficult to understand.”
“This case shows that we still have a lot of educational work to do in the justice system about antisemitism and its consequences,” he added.

The antisemitism commissioner for Bavaria, Ludwig Spaenle, expressed his gratitude to the local police for appealing the lower court’s decision in their desire to rid themselves of the 45-year-old officer.

But “We must be able to expect our police officers not to make or share anti-Semitic or racist statements, even on their private platforms,” he added.

“I find it intolerable when a police officer wishes a fate similar to that of the Nazi dictatorship on the people they are supposed to protect.”

The court’s decision was made in February, but was only publicized this week.