Satire on trial: How dare you mock the New Normal?
David Thunder | Satire on trial: How dare you mock the New Normal? | IN AUGUST 2022, US playwright and satirist C J Hopkins, while a resident of Berlin, tweeted cover art from his book on The Rise of the New Normal Reich, which included a satirical representation of a swastika superimposed on a medical mask. For that, he has been found guilty in a German court of spreading pro-Nazi propaganda, and is facing a hefty fine and potentially a prison sentence. ■ In his tweet, Hopkins wrote (in German) that ‘Masks are symbols of ideological conformity. That’s all that they are, and that’s all they ever were. Stop pretending that they were ever anything else or get used to wearing them.’ In a second tweet, Hopkins quoted Health Minister Karl Lauterbach’s statement that ‘Masks always send a signal.’ ■ For these two tweets, Amazon Germany banned Hopkins’s book, and the Berlin state prosecutor investigated him for violating German criminal statutes against ‘the use of symbols of unconstititional and terrorist organisations‘. In January 2024, Hopkins was tried before the Tiergarten Berlin District Court and acquitted. The public prosecutor appealed the decision before the Berlin Court of Appeals, which overturned his acquittal on September 30 and found him guilty as charged.