German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has reportedly filed hundreds of criminal complaints against members of the public for insulting him during his tenure as a politician.
According to research conducted by the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Merz is “one of the most sensitive politicians in the history” of the German republic.
Die Welt’s Sunday paper reported that during his time as a member of parliament, Merz filed criminal complaints against citizens for calling him names such as “little Nazi”, “asshole,” and “filthy drunk”, among others.
The paper said that documents from a law firm commissioned by Merz to file such complaints revealed that the “little Nazi” and “filthy drunken” comments resulted in police searches, with the later ultimately being found to have been an unlawful search.
In the “little Nazi” case, police seized the phone of an elderly and physically disabled woman, who is bound to a wheelchair. The paper noted that by doing so, police hindered her ability to communicate with her doctors.
In total, Welt reported that there were 4,999 individual cases collected by the law firm.
Merz is said to have partnered with the internet monitoring agency ‘So Done:’, a firm founded by a former Free Democrat politician Alex Brockmeier. The agency is said to monitor social media sites for so-called hate speech free of charge for political figures in Germany in exchange for recouping 50 per cent of any fines levied against members of the public.
Given Germany’s strict rules against insulting politicians, it is not always necessary for the individual politician to file a criminal complaint.
Indeed, one such case in which a commenter called Merz an “asshole”, was launched by the Berlin prosecutor’s office after being tipped off by the group “Hesse Against Hate”, a project launched by the local interior ministry in the state of Hesse. The case is currently being investigated as a potential “extremist” politically motivated crime.
However, some complaints were personally signed by Merz, including one in February of 2025, just days before the federal election that resulted in him becoming Chancellor of Germany.
A spokesman admitted that the federal government is aware of “more than 170 contacts from the police and public prosecutor’s offices” over alleged insults to the Chancellor, but claimed that he has not signed any since coming to power.
It comes as Germany and the European Union as a whole has come under heavy criticism from the Trump administration over the increasingly censorious climate on the Continent.
A strategy document released by the White House this week said that “the rights of free speech, freedom of
religion and of conscience, and the right to choose and steer our common government are core rights that must never be infringed.”
“Regarding countries that share, or say they share, these principles, the United States will advocate strongly that they be upheld in letter and spirit. We will oppose elite-driven, anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties in Europe, the Anglosphere, and the rest of the democratic world, especially among our allies.”
Following the move by the European Commission — the unelected executive arm of the EU — imposing a $140 million fine on Elon Musk’s X, U.S. Under Secretary of State Sarah B. Rogers said that while Brussels attempts to shroud its censorship as a populist effort against Big Tech firms, the censorship apparatus is more often turned against ordinary citizens. Rogers pointed to a case in which a German woman received a harsher sentence than a convicted rapist for calling him a “disgusting rapist pig“.
“In a free society, that shouldn’t happen,” Rogers said.
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