Resistance

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORY138citing etc. has to be determined by purely formal criteria of the writingitself. In analogy to what the German Constitutional High Courthas determined regarding the violation of one’s honor, choice ofwords and tone must explicitly and objectively be hurtful or inciting.If these features are missing, the claimed offense cannot have beencommitted.Pure factual claims can never bear these characteristics, be theyas controversial and taboo-breaking as they want. If it is neverthelessclaimed that matter-of-factual views about the persecution of theJews, which are considered to be wrong, have these characteristics,then this is an arbitrary, illegitimate interpretation of these terms,which, if applied universally, could be misused for the prohibition ofeach and everything, if only somebody can be found who feels sufficientlyupset or unsettled by it.In order to better illustrate how the judges during my first trialtwelve years ago argued, I may use an emotionally neutral example.Imagine a defendant who is in court for allegedly having caused acar accident under the influence of alcohol. He lets 100 friends testifyon his behalf, who all claim that during that said evening he hadnot drunk any alcohol. Yet then an expert testifies who has analyzeda blood sample drawn from the defendant shortly after the accident.He states in court that the blood values clearly indicate that the defendantwas severely drunk at the time of the accident.And now imagine the prosecutor as he demands that the expertwitness be arrested and put in the dock himself, because with his testimonyhe has indirectly given the impression that those 100 witnessesmight have lied. Certain circles of the populace could concludefrom this that the witnesses have acted out of base motives,which could cause negative emotions within these circles against thewitnesses. This could result in some individuals going so far as tocall for actions against these witnesses. This would therefore provethat the expert witness with his testimony about the defendant’sblood values, which contradict the other witnesses, has insulted themand has incited the populace to acts of violence against them. Hencethe expert witness has to be imprisoned for inciting the masses.If in such a case a prosecutor would repeatedly argue this way,one would probably suggest that he change his profession, and if hedefied such advice and kept acting that way, one would probably advicehim to seek psychiatric aid.