At six o'clock this morning, local German time, many evildoers across the country were rudely awakened by the sound of shattering glass and breaking door hinges as elements of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) began military style surprise assaults against the homes of their sleeping targets.
The federal officers left no closet door locked and no bureau or desk drawer unopened as they swept through private residences in the dawn light. Uniformed police armed with assault rifles and tactical gear out the wazoo were seen scouring every last premises for evidence, and seizing personal electronics as contraband for later searches to aid in their ongoing, nationwide, criminal investigations.
...The massive crackdown saw police launch morning raids against 170 individuals, which saw police seize computers, cell phones, and tablets, and conduct searches in multiple locations across the country.
These raids left no part of the country untouched.
...In North Rhine-Westphalia alone - where Reul [interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state] has served as interior minister since 2017 - numerous police departments are involved. According to dpa information, officers from eight cities, including Cologne and Dusseldorf, carried out simultaneous operations at 6 am (0400 GMT).
Two search warrants are being executed in the state and 14 suspects are to be questioned.
As an American, I can't imagine any scene more intimidating or frightening. Had Chancellor Merz finally grown a pair? Was the skinny, evil Magoo finally cracking down on the elements that were turning a formerly well-ordered, comfortable German society into a diversity-inflicted hellhole?
Had he directed the police to go after the human traffickers and drug cartels run by Germany's unassimilated and hostile immigrant population?
Nein
Well, then it had to be an Islamic terrorist ring tied to North Africa and Syria, right? Or irate Iranians plotting revenge. That's it.
Nein
Of course! It was the Russians!
Nein
I'm afraid to admit I'm running out of bad guys, y'all. What could possibly get the German government so flustered that they'd kick your door in at dawn, go on to toss your house, and then steal your stuff?
'What,' we ask, 'Could possibly be as bad as any of that other stuff and call for such desperate measures?'
Calling a German politician a 'moron' also qualifies for using desperate measures.
...This was the 12th time that the police took such nationwide action against so-called politically motivated crime (PMK).
Two-thirds of those people whom officers hit had reportedly made right-wing radical statements. The police also went after alleged religious extremists and left-wing radicals.
The raids also included people who were suspected of violating a specific part of the German criminal code, namely those who allegedly insulted politicians.
German politicians have been increasingly using this law, leading to hefty fines against those found guilty of calling politicians “morons”, for example, or mocking them with degrading images.
🚨Police Target 170 People for Insulting Politicians Online
— The European Conservative (@EuroConOfficial) June 25, 2025
If you call Chancellor Merz a “drunk” or Green leader Robert Habeck an “idiot” in Deutschland you could get a visit from law enforcement.https://t.co/gIZ6LE74Ht
The German interior minister, who advocates kicking doors in for calling someone a moron, is also lecturing on decency. You can't make this up.
..."Many people have forgotten the difference between hate and opinion," Reul told dpa.
"It's simple: what you wouldn't do in the real world doesn't belong online either. It's time for more decency, both offline and online."
They're serious about the 'moron' stuff.
COMMENT: How calling a German finance minister a ‘moron’ leads to cops and criminal charges.
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) May 23, 2025
By John Rosenthal. ⬇️ https://t.co/R56YxEbM5l
And one of the German news services, after getting called out for using a stock photo (as we have to do) to illustrate the raids, explains that photographs of such raids are forbidden (wonder why). And then offered an actual photograph from the one time the press was tipped off about the Polizei swooping in on an internet evildoer, and surprise - the overwhelming force to confront a social media savvy grandfather clad in a bathrobe looks just like the stock photo.
This is a symbolic stock photo, yes. It used to illustrate how these house raids are conducted.
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) June 25, 2025
As for how these raids are actually conducted, they are rarely filmed or photographed.
However, last year, during the Compact Magazine raids, a number of photos were published of… pic.twitter.com/oVXZWVxuI7
...As for how these raids are actually conducted, they are rarely filmed or photographed.
However, last year, during the Compact Magazine raids, a number of photos were published of the publisher, and they looked like this.
Photographers were tipped off ahead of time of this particular raid, in violation of a number of laws.
The Compact Magazine Remix mentions, coincidentally, just won a huge and completely unexpected victory in a Leipzig courtroom this week.
This was last year after they published pieces critical of Germany's immigration policies.
🇩🇪 Extraordinary scenes in Germany as police raid the home of Jürgen Elsässer, the publisher of the right-wing Compact Magazine, and remove various belongings from his residence outside Berlin.
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) July 16, 2024
Germany's interior minister has placed a blanket ban on the entire publication.
It… pic.twitter.com/KsV03IbbSs
And this was the news yesterday.
A court in Germany has lifted the ban on the right-wing Compact Magazine.
— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) June 24, 2025
They were critical of mass migration so the government banned them.
But now they won in court.
They are free for the moment.
In the meantime, as one sage observer of German 'democracy' puts it, these sweeping enforcement bans have become a holiday for the German police forces.
German police conduct coordinated nationwide raids for the pseudo-crime of "hate posting" in their ongoing battle against freedom of expression
...Today was the twelfth such “Action Day against Hate and Incitement on the Internet.” That is only an approximate title; it varies slightly across press sources. This dubious ritual began in 2016, after Merkel opened the German borders to the entirety of the developing world and our politicians grew tired of people calling them imbeciles online. Police are very open that the goal of these coordinated Action Days is intimidation – or, as they put it, “deterrence.”
Our federal police love this holiday so much they often celebrate it twice a year, which is why are already on the twelfth such day, even though we have only had nine years since the establishment of this custom. Sometimes our betters even throw in bonus action days that for some reason don’t count, as during Covid when they conducted a special “Action Day against Political Hate Postings” after the seventh “Nationwide Action Day against Hate Postings” but before the eighth “Nationwide Action Day against Hate Postings.” Who knows how many such action days we have really had, especially considering that since 2020 the broader EU has adopted this sporadic holiday and occasionally coordinates its own Continent-wide “Action Day against Hatred and Incitement on the Internet.”
...Obviously, internet “hate” has not quadrupled since 2021. The only thing that has increased is the quantity of resources being used to hunt down and punish social media users.
Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU), apparently unaware that the victims of the present enforcement holiday are disproportionately likely to be his own constituents, made an ass of himself earlier today by saying how “important” it is to “conduct these action days against hate posts,” because “this is part of our policy against radicalisation and polarisation.” Dead-eyed, he continued to muse formulaically that “radicalisation also takes place online,” where it “forms the basis for further radical thinking and possibly even violent acts.”
Everyone in Europe loves the 'kick the door down' to save democracy days.
I hope J.D. doesn't hear about this and go making the Europeans all mad again.
They seem to have such simple authoritarian pleasures.
