ABSTRACT
After long discussion the Legal Committee of the Bundestag reached a compromise, which became law after controversial debate in the Bundestag."
The legislature has refrained from creating a special "Auschwitz" rule, and instead it has decided in favour of a procedural solution within the framework of the offence of defamation. §194 StGB was amended to the effect that defamation and defiling the memory of the dead in connection with the victim's persecution by the National socialist or another despotic and arbitrary regime can also be prosecuted ex officio without a private application for prosecution. The essence of the revised version of § 194 StGB is contained in sub-section 1 sentence 2 of the paragraph. This provides that an application for prosecution is not required, if the act has been committed by circulating a piece of writing or making it available to the public, or at a meeting or on the radio, and if the injured party was persecuted as a member of a group under the National Socialist or another despotic and arbitrary regime, and if this group is part of the population and the defamation is connected with this persecution.
