A far-right German politician has been fined after comparing Germany’s coronavirus restrictions and vaccination campaign with Nazi-era anti-Jewish pogroms.
Florian Jäger, who served as a member of Germany's Parliament, the Bundestag, posted a video on his Facebook page in 2021 claiming the German government's COVID measures were comparable with the Kristallnacht terror campaign against German Jews in 1938.
He is currently the chairman for the AfD in the district of Fürstenfeldbruck near Munich.
In Germany, the term Kristallnacht became a widespread designation for the Night of the Broken Glass which occurred between November 9 and 10, 1938.
During that time, Hitler’s Nazi regime shattered the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings and more than 250 synagogues across the country.
30,000 Jewish men were also arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps. In addition, gangs of thugs from Hitler's SA abused and murdered numerous Jewish fellow citizens.
The video which was shared and marked with “Like”, was classified as hate speech because it equated the injustice of the Nazis against the Jews with the measures to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.
Florian Jäger (Photo: German Parliament/Hagen Schnaub)
During the Covid-19 pandemic, many facilities including leisure centres and pubs were off limits to Germans who choose not to have a Covid-19 vaccine.
Speaking at a court hearing in Munich, prosecutor Andreas Franck, the antisemitism commissioner of the Bavarian judiciary, argued Jäger had intentionally sought to incite hatred.
He said: “As a politician, he knew exactly where the burning issues were and his video poured petrol on the fire.
"If the Holocaust is degraded to an arbitrary object of comparison for measures that are perceived as unwelcome, then the protection of Jewish people from antisemitic attacks would also be dragged down.”
Franck also argued that with his video, Jäger gave opponents of vaccination a "blueprint" with which they "can stylize themselves as resistance fighters".
However, Frank Miksch, a lawyer representing Jäger, said Jäger was not an antisemite nor a Nazi sympathiser but belonged to the "liberal part of the AfD”.
Jager has also denied all the allegations against him and said before the court hearing that he had a "great passion for Israel”.
The court ruled that the comments amounted to incitement of hatred and sentenced Jäger to pay a fine of €2,700 ($2,930).
The amount was reduced from €5,400 due to the poor state of the Jäger’s personal finances.
