Welcome to the dungeon.
German media theorist and commentator Norbert Bolz is something of a revered institution in that country. A kind of VDH philosopher giant.
Norbert Bolz stands as a towering figure in the realm of media theory, a German philosopher whose ideas have shaped how we understand communication in the modern age. Born in the mid-20th century, he bridged traditional philosophy with the emerging digital landscape, drawing on thinkers like Nietzsche and McLuhan to critique and illuminate the ways media influence society. His career, spanning decades as a professor and author, has left an indelible mark on academic discourse, particularly in Germany, where his provocative insights often sparked debate and reflection.
What makes Bolz notable is his ability to dissect the chaos of new media with clarity and foresight. Retiring from Technische Universität Berlin in 2018 after a long tenure, he didn’t fade into obscurity; instead, he continued engaging with public issues through writings and commentary. His work challenges us to see media not just as tools, but as forces that redefine reality itself, making him a key voice in discussions about technology’s role in culture and politics.
Even though retired from teaching, Prof Bolz, whose political views are described as conservative, has remained in the public eye through his lectures, articles, social media posts, and association with the columns he writes for the German-language publication WELT.
It was one of those social media posts and a reaction nearly two years after the fact that has rocked Germany this morning.
In January of 2024, during a sarcastic response on X to an article by the Left-wing German newspaper Die Tageszeitung (taz), Bolz quoted taz's Xweet as his reply, and broke a sacred 'no Nazi nothing' rule.
The Polizei were banging on his door at 9 o'clock this morning.
THOUGHT CRIME RAID TIME
Berlin police have raided the home of Norbert Bolz, a prominent right-wing writer and pundit, regarding a post he made on social media network X almost two years ago.
At 8:52am this morning, officers conducted a search of the home of 72-year-old Bolz on the basis an order issued by the Tiergarten district court.
The court had granted a request by the Berlin public prosecutor’s office that started proceedings against Bolz for suspected violations of Article 86a of the German Penal Code. That bans the dissemination and use of symbols of forbidden organisations such as the Nazi Party and carries a sentence of up to three years in prison.
The court also gave the police permission to confiscate Bolz’ personal electronic devices.
...Then, Bolz had ironically commented on an article by left-wing newspaper Die Tageszeitung (taz), which applauded the fact that a proposed ban of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party (AfD) was gaining traction.
“A good translation for ‘woke’: Germany, wake up!,” Bolz had written.
Germany, wake up! (Deutschland erwache!) is, apparently, a well-known Nazi slogan going back to the 1920s, and most definitely on the German government's banned words list. You can go to jail for years for saying or writing that.
Unless, obviously, you are a Leftist media organization. If you are a right-winger or even run-of-the-mill conservative, regardless of how well-known or why you used any semblance of the phrase, they'll be beating your door down to take you, your phone, and your computer to the hoosgow.
I don't think it helped that Bolz was defending the populist Alternativ for Germany (AfD) party in conjunction with his pithy response. The Taz Xweet was all about how delighted the little fascists were that a constitutional ban on the AfD seemed to be moving forward and a real possibility at the time.
According to Welt's reporting, the tip to the police for the raid came from the government office itself, so they were planning on shaking this guy down good in any event.
Der Hinweis ans Bundeskriminalamt, der zur Hausdurchsuchung beim Berliner Publizisten Norbert Bolz führte, kam nicht von einem anonymen Denunzianten, sondern ganz offiziell von einer staatlichen Meldestelle. Das Portal sorgte schon einmal für Schlagzeilen. https://t.co/SxJ2Rd8yJY
— Axel Springer Investigativ (@investigativ_de) October 23, 2025
The tip to the Federal Criminal Police Office, which led to the house search at Berlin publicist Norbert Bolz, did not come from an anonymous informant, but rather quite officially from a state reporting office. The portal had already made headlines once before.
For Bolz's part, he was a little nonplussed at the state intrusion.
...Bolz cited a title from the far-left TAZ magazine that included a phrase associated with alleged Nazi propaganda. Authorities are investigating him for using symbols of unconstitutional organizations, a charge that many see as a threat to free speech.
Bolz expressed his shock, stating, “I usually write and talk about this world. It's scary when this reality suddenly appears on your doorstep.”
This incident raises serious concerns about the limits of critical commentary on political movements in Germany and freedom of the press in the country.
But somehow managed to maintain his dry sense of humor.
...On Thursday morning, officers arrived at Bolz’s home and questioned him about a post on X that featured the Nazi-affiliated expression, “Deutschland erwache!” (“Germany, awake!”). Bolz confirmed his authorship of the post, avoiding the seizure of his laptop, he told POLITICO.
“The friendly police officers gave me the good advice to be more careful in the future. I’ll do that and only talk about trees from now on,” Bolz sarcastically commented in a separate post on X. Bolz is a regular commentator for WELT, a sister publication of POLITICO in the Axel Springer Group.
Meanwhile, German free speech advocates, already horrified by the harassment, fining, and arrest of people for Xweets and Facebook opinions, are in a complete uproar at this latest outrage. They justifiably see it as a pure political hit job against a prominent critic of an overly woke and deeply unpopular establishment.
"If a renowned media scholar like Professor Bolz has to endure a house search because of an obviously ironic tweet, then something is fundamentally wrong in our constitutional state."
Bolz's employer Welt.
One Xweet I saw this morning asked, 'What? Are we Germans the UK now?'
That was a vicious burn.
My favorite German blogger also weighed in, but had to make sure they included the 'I DO NOT APPROVE OF NAZIS' lingo or they'd be beating the front door down at their house, too.
Mainstream German media critic Norbert Bolz just had his house raided for repeating James Lindsay's connection between "woke" & the SA lyric "Deutschland erwache!"* ("Germany awaken!"). I swear I am not making this up (also I reject this & all other deplorable Nazi slogans). pic.twitter.com/0K19ETX749
— eugyppius (@eugyppius1) October 23, 2025
He seems to believe that many of these unheretofore heard of prosecutions for Nazi-related thought crimes, regardless of intention, are linked to defensive NGOs and the woke government they operate through. These organizations are searching opponents' social media, hoping to pull up matches of forbidden opinions or phrases that they can then send 'tips' to the government to investigate for prosecution.
...Apollo News has discovered that the criminal investigation into Bolz was triggered by a report from the internet hate speech portal “Hessen gegen Hetze” (“Hesse Against Hate Speech”). We have met this organisation before; they are the same operation that sent prosecutors after the economist Thomas Vierhaus for the crime of calling a state media journalist a “nincompoop.” Like the other cry-to-teacher NGOs who constitute Germany’s censorship industrial complex, this one works with a division of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) that is supposed to review speech crime reports and forward those with legal merit to responsible prosecutors. This means that multiple authorities signed off on the insane investigation in this case – not only the Berlin prosecutor and the Tiergarten court, but also the BKA.
I’m tempted to write that this ridiculous case merely continues a disturbing trend, whereby the German censorship industrial complex conducts massive internet searches of Nazi keywords in order to generate as many criminal investigations as possible. This would explain the uptick in openly moronic and contextually oblivious speech prosecutions we’ve seen in the past year. Here, however, it’s equally possible that somebody at Hesse gegen Hetze or elsewhere deliberately targeted Bolz for some reason. This might explain why nobody reported Bolz’s original tweet until 27 November 2024 – nearly a year after he posted it.
The appalling overreach this morning has lit a fire under the 'weaponization of government' voices and free speech advocates.
SOMETHING IS FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG
...German media law expert Joachim Steinhöfel called the raid “a worrying loss of control of our criminal justice system”, adding: “When a renowned media scholar such as [former] Professor Bolz has to endure a house search because of a clearly ironic tweet, then something is fundamentally wrong with our constitutional State.
“The irony in Bolz’ tweet is so obvious that one would have to deliberately misunderstand it in order to construct a criminal offence here.”
Steinhöfel also drew parallels with other famous judicial incidents in Germany in the past years – such as the prosecution of a pensioner who had shared a meme that likened Greens party leader Robert Habeck to a moron.
He also recalled the trial against a right-wing journalist who had posted a manipulated picture online of former interior minister Nancy Faeser wearing a T-shirt with the slogan: “I hate freedom of opinion”.
Of course, Bolz's own words may be the reason the ruling class is after him.
“We must stop whining that we are the ones being deceived. And we must stop hoping in the parties and politicians – in a FDP that has come to its senses or an uprising of the conservatives in the CDU. Hoping for that is naive. What is necessary and possible, however, is well-articulated intellectual resistance, a permanent critique of the power apparatus, whose essential dimension is called the Deep State.”
As Germany falls to ruin around them, the State cannot afford to have free thinkers and rational individuals telling people to 'wake up,' even if they are quoting someone else.
God forbid some did before they consolidated power.
It would be over.
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