Germany built aggressive systems to combat hate speech, but the line between defending democracy and undermining it may be beginning to blur.
Excerpted from The Future of Free Speech: Reversing the Global Decline of Democracy’s Most Essential Freedom by Jacob Mchangama and Jeff Kosseff. Copyright 2026. Published with permission of Johns Hopkins University Press.
By Jacob Mchangama and Jeff Kosseff
Due to its Nazi past, Germany’s post–World War II militant democracy has been unusually aggressive in banning hatred and extremism. Early postwar laws prohibited Nazi symbols, propaganda, and organizations. A turning point came in 1960 with the “swastika epidemic” — a surge of anti-Semitic graffiti and attacks on synagogues. In response, the German parliament made it illegal to incite hatred or insult “segments of the population” in ways that might disturb public peace. The epidemic was later revealed to be a KGB “active measures” campaign. Despite this, Germany has continually expanded its hate-speech laws to cover areas such as incitement, Holocaust denial, and the distribution of propaganda and symbols of unconstitutional organizations. Even criminal defamation laws can function as hate-speech provisions under this broad framework.
While Germany’s speech laws were intended to protect minorities and democracy, they now frequently shield governments from criticism. Alarmingly, they are sometimes used against those minorities they were designed to protect — such as the frequent prosecutions of Muslims and Palestinians during pro-Palestinian protests. This effectively leaves a predominantly white, German political administrative class to determine which minorities deserve protection — or prosecution — under laws meant to defend them from majoritarian intolerance.
Despite its patchwork of hate-speech laws, to the country’s politicians, Germany’s militant democracy seems increasingly outdated in the age of social media. While traditional media once kept most extremism out of sight, platforms now amplify bigotry. To adapt, Germany passed the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG), but the act has struggled to meet the complexities of the digital era. Outsourcing online censorship to tech giants did not curb far-right extremism. In 2020, then–Interior Minister Horst Seehofer warned that “right-wing extremism, antisemitism, and racism remain the greatest threats to security,” and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s domestic intelligence service, reported a sharp increase in right-wing extremist sympathizers — including those willing to use violence — between 2018, when NetzDG took full effect, and 2019. Politically motivated offenses and anti-Semitic incidents — mostly linked to the far right — also increased.
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Jacob Mchangama is the Founder and Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech. He is also a research professor at Vanderbilt University and a Senior Fellow at The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
Jeff Kosseff is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow for The Future of Free Speech. He writes about online speech, the First Amendment, and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.