Image of German health minister making alleged ‘Hitler’ gesture gets woman fined
A German court is prosecuting a woman for producing an image of a public health official making an arm gesture similar to a Nazi salute. She is fighting the charges.
According to Apollo News, a woman from Coburg, Germany, is facing a penal order from the Schweinfurt District Court for her role in producing a poster showing German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach raising his right arm with his palm facing downward. The movement has become synonymous with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi salute and is considered a “use of symbols of unconstitutional and terrorist organisations” under German law.
Apollo News reports that the woman is objecting to the fine, saying the reason for the image was to compare the legal treatment of those seen making the banned hand gesture.
The poster in question
The image that caught the court’s attention was a poster showing side-by-side photos of Lauterbach and another man speaking at a Querdenker event.
The poster was part of a “Quotes of Shame” exhibition sponsored by Dialogue for the Future, a citizens’ initiative critical of Germany’s COVID-19 policies that aims to “promote social cohesion.”
(Dialogue for the Future)
Querdenker in Germany is an anti-government movement that arose in protest against the country’s COVID-19 policies. The man, who Bild reports is Hannover policeman Michael Fritsch, was fined €5,000 for making a similar gesture during an October 2020 protest.
Touchy politicians
Since 2020, Germany’s speech laws have been seen as becoming increasingly restrictive, similar to those of the United Kingdom.
A November 2024 report on charges in German courts for “insults, slander, or defamation under Section 188 of the German Criminal Code, i.e., against political figures” by Apollo News found more than 1,300 different cases since 2021. The outlet reported that some of the cases involved people being charged for “harmless memes.”
Lauterbach on Elon’s “salute”
This isn’t the first time the German health minister, coined “Germany’s Fauci” by the Washington Post in 2021, has entered a conversation on Nazi salutes. Lauterbach weighed in on Trump’s second inauguration night speech from billionaire businessman Elon Musk. The speech concluded with Musk making multiple gestures that onlookers likened to Hitler’s well-known salute.
“From what we know so far, I definitely don’t value (Elon Musk) as a politician. But such a gesture, given his already well-known proximity to right-wing populists in the fascist tradition, must worry any democrat,” Lauterbach posted to X on Jan. 20, 2025.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
